Sweet Obsession
by Miss Nae Malfoy
Summary: Edward Cullenciano runs the prospering Mafia business of Chicago in the 1940's. Bella Swan is the police chief's daughter- a crooked cop that will do anything to consume more power and rank. His only daughter is traded to Edward for just that, leaving young Bella to face the hungry wolves on her own. But when she gets too deep into the mob and this lifestyle, how will she survive?
1. Don Von's

A/N: So, just try it out? The Cullens are the "Cullencianos" in this story.

Disowner: I do NOT own Twilight.

We didn't meet at a loud swing or popular speakeasy like you might have imagined. No, it all began at Dona Von's Italian restaurant- a place where my father often took my mother, Rene. Charlie, whom was one to gloat, treated her as a trophy. And she never faltered. No, never faltered. Not as I was that afternoon.

Charles Swan was the chief of police in one of Chicago's newest districts. There were too many ties that belonged to Washington, so they moved. His daughter and dazzling wife grew accustomed to the fast city life style, as he expected them to. I rolled my eyes at the prospect that my father was so_ proud_ of me. Why could he not take pride in the countless horses I trained, or perhaps the helping hand I gave his department- signing things for him when his hand was too weak, bringing refreshments to his officers when cases were being cracked, being of no bother to him when he came home moody and angered. "It's nice to meet you." Alice Cullen held out her hand to me. It was a tiny amount of porcelain skin, but I shook it softly nonetheless.

This was where people usually knew they made a best friend or a worst enemy. But I wasn't that kind of girl. I could only hope that she would spare me the illustrious talk a girl did when her father was speaking business at the table. Tonight, we would be sharing a long meal with a large, well-known family. The Cullencianos. It wasn't a name you just threw about in everyday talk. I snapped out of my dark thoughts and smiled back at her. "It's wonderful to meet you, also." Her pearly white smile matched her mother's. Esme Cullenciano held the hand and reins of Carlisle Cullenciano, the man whom ran everything else. There were a lot of different terms they had for the Cullens.

Bullies. Bosses. Businessmen. I had a word for them, and so did my parents. _Mafia_. Straightforward, clean cut Mafia. They did business dealings varying from prostitution to breaching prohibition. They bullied, they bossed people around, and they did a lot of business. People weren't wrong in their judging. They just didn't have the whole picture. From what my father told me, the Cullencianos offered valid protection to shops and restaurants from rival gangs, they sold alcohol to damned sinners anyway, and they kept their business clean enough. That satisfied Charlie. "Rene, your daughter is stunning." Esme looked at me with clear, blue eyes. Mafia bosses usually had wives with bloodshot eyes and dilated pupils. What truthful sinner could blame them? To have that entire drug at their fingertips?

Rene looked at me with adoration, something I wished she held for me all of the time. "Thank you, Esme. She is." I blushed and hid under the napkin I took from the wineglass, making a show of fluttering then folding it onto my lap. That's what my mother taught me to do instead of giggle or make a complete fool of myself. This was what ladies did. Did I forget to mention I am Bella Swan, blushing, bumbling fool of a girl? Rene and Esme had similar builds; dazzling smile, back straight, arms folded, legs crossed, posture perfect. That was a society woman. That was a woman who belonged to an important man.

I didn't fear that I was seventeen and had only been kissed on the cheek by a boy who ran scared when my father accused him of much more when he pulled us over after our date. That was humiliating. I never went on a date after that. Well, if you counted being courted by Senator Moffletz's son for a few months, I had one more date. That ended in disaster when he proposed just minutes before he dropped me off for the night. Failure. My love life was bland, and so very sad.

My mother didn't need to verbally say how beautiful Alice Cullenciano was. Her shoulder length cobalt hair (from whom she got from was a mystery) stayed charmingly put and her cute smile was lightly glossed. Esme had flowy chestnut colored hair and Mr. Cullenciano was a born blonde. In a subconscious act, my nails, painted nude, felt the wisps of brown hair I had. They were plain, yet luscious locks my mother _used_ to enjoy brushing and fiddling with. My mother sent me a warning look, pleading that I cease my ministrations. My hand automatically went to my lap and stayed there for the remainder of the entrée. "They have arrived." Carlisle Cullenciano winked teasingly to my father, who grumbled good naturedly back.

Two men, one slightly taller than the other, strode confidently to our table. I clutched at the scarlet table cloth, so subtly no one noticed. One man, with cooper hair smoothly parted tipped his fedora to me, then to my mother. The other, stockier, yet just a bit shorter, unlaced the first few buttons to his pinstriped suit. Here in the twenties, people knew what these suits meant. People feared the men in the suits, and they feared most the contents of their holster. Every respectable man wore a fedora. Its screamed money. It made me absolutely hot and bothered when I saw men in black valor fedoras and high-waste slacks, and perhaps a suave dinner jacket? I snapped from my fantasy and looked directly in front of me. There he was. Edward Cullenciano, in the flesh. I hadn't actually ever met him before. There was no need. "Hello, Miss Swan." His accent was a mix between Italian and pure American.

"Hello, Mr. Cullenciano." I felt awkward calling him that. "Mr. Cullenciano" made me think of Carlisle Cullenciano- not young, sexy Edward. But I would never call him by name unless he directly told me so. I doubted that would ever be, seeing as how he didn't even send a smile or second word. The other man, whom I later learned was Emmett, looked nothing like his sister and brother. Edward and Alice looked like near twins, resembling Esme the most. A gorgeous factor seemed to run in their blood.

"Well, we're here to talk business. Let's have at it, shall we?" Emmett chimed royally; he must know his place well.

"Emmett." Alice warned. "So, Bella, how old are you? What do you like to do when you have time off? Do you have any favorite shops?" She turned our conversation south. Esme put her hand on her daughter's. Alice instantly lost the excited color of her face, but kept her smile.

"I'm seventeen. I just graduated." I blushed, not really knowing what to say. I couldn't divulge and tell them about my love of poetry, art, romanticism… I couldn't say that I wanted mafia-related friends like them to ass some kind of spice to my life. "As every girl, I have a love for Chanel. She is my inspiration." I could sense my mother mouthing the words to me as we practiced in front of her vanity. I was twelve before my dad took me out to a business dinner with him. There, I impressed him thoroughly. Thus, he added me to his guest list. I did wear Chanel clothing; I was wearing a layered crème party dress that night. I was uncomfortable with anything that didn't cover my knees, and so was my father.

"Very smart girl you have there, Charles. Perhaps us girls could get together for a fine lunch and acquire some shopping items?" Esme smiled dashingly. Carlisle uttered a few wise cracks to my dad, who chuckled. Rene and Esme conversed about it and Alice perked up, tugging the hem of Emmett's sleeve.

"Oh, Emmett! Wouldn't that be wonderful? You could meet my friend-"

"No, Alice." His booming voice quieted when she sent him the hint of a glare. "The last friend you set me up with vomited all over my nice shoes. And she had the nerve to think she was my moll!" Emmett seemed to be upset. Alice brushed off his outburst and turned to me.

"I have a friend that you would absolutely drewl over! I'm quite taken with him myself-"

"Alice." Edward's dark eyes looked directly into hers. "I will escort Miss Isabella Swan when she needs a man for her arm. None of your pretty boys will do." When he turned and winked at me, I suddenly felt a thousand pounds light. It was as if I was hot air balloon, lifting up from the table and flying over Chicago's city of crime and adultery. Why did girls feel light as a feather when guys looked at them?

"Sh-shopping? Eddie, you never shop with us." Alice's mouth worked itself in frenzy as she spluttered a quick list of instances where she begged him to escort her. Edward held a hand up to her, and she quickly shut her little mouth. She pouted comically and looked down at her food. I looked curiously at his hand and thought to myself that if a man ever dare shush me so crudely, I would bend it back so far that it would crack. Not many people could hush Alice Cullen, lest any man. But Edward did it with a lift of his soft, rough hands.

"Place View is a wonderful vacation place. Some of our greatest memories are there, found under the tropical palm trees." Esme wooed my mother with her vacation love stories.

"Perhaps I'll take you there, sweet Isabella." Edward murmured. I sent him a challenging smile.

"Place View is for honeymooners." I sipped from my light Chardonnay. Edward was throwing back full glasses of Brandy, as his father and my own were. By now, our dads had lit their expensive cigars and began to talk politics, which was dangerous when speaking to a Mafia member. There were no measures not taken when it came to making sure a Mafia man's favored politician won the election. Lucky Luciano and his men taught us that.

"Then I suppose you'll have to marry me." I giggled and shook my head. There was no way a match could ever come of us. "If an uptown boy doesn't beat me to it." My eyes flicked up to his. I hated that derogatory term. But as he searched my face, I felt as if he knew the name of the _uptown boy_. Michael Newton was as sweet as candy to me, and bought me things I never used. He had even gone as far as requesting my father for my hand. My dad politely declined, saying that I wasn't yet old enough for a marriage. I eternally thanked him for that bit of humanity, but fully refused to believe his reply to Mike. My mother and father couldn't wait to have a grandeur name attached to "Swan". So, what was the wait?

_Uptown_- I could just hear the adjectives that other slumlords put before it; spoiled, stuck-up, selfish _uptowns_. It was thanks to people like the Cullens that police families were targeted and whacked. I mentally blushed, not knowing how cruel and judgmental I could be when called an awful slur. I wasn't an uptown. Sure, I loved good food and couture clothing. That didn't make me snobby. At least I didn't go around selling awful substances to sick people. I wasn't the one who shot men dead for making measly mistakes. I didn't break laws just to show everyone how much of an egotistical, foolish person I was! "Dessert?" Dona Von himself approached our table and showered our mothers with sweet compliments and spoke to Carlisle in terse Italian, sparing my father a few words in English. The dirty blond haired Carlisle nodded to most of what he was saying, but Emmett stiffened drastically when Dona Von emphasized the word "_pericolo_". Alice grasped his hand under the table and squeezed it in her pixie like fashion, completely calming him.

"_Von, incontare il me amore, Isabella._" My head snapped at him when he used the word "love". We were not in love. I was merely a guest he had to entertain while our daddies talked cold, hard business. I had heard some of him before this, but nothing past Mafia.

"_Lei e una vera bellezza_. _Ma ia solo meraviglia, non sa la sua posizione cosi come lo sai?_" By the way he spoke, I could tell that he was challenging Edward, both with his eyes and words. Edward slid an arm around my shoulders and sat back comfortably.

"English, Von. Bella wants to know when she's being called beautiful." Edward finally answered my questioning looks- well, almost daggers in nature.

"Of course." Von sent his charming smile to me and began to speak in rapid English, accented through many years. I smiled at most of them, but in a childish act of fear, I scooted closer to Edward, who let his arm snake around my waist. He 'pffted' at Dona Von's pathetic, corny charm.

"Thank you, Von, but Bella has had enough for tonight. Have a plate of Tiramisu sent to our table and another bottle of Pinot Grigio for my little Bella. This Merlot is too strong for her small body." He doted on me for the duration of the night, choosing to feed me the cake (that tasted an awful lot like coffee) himself. He poured my wine and dabbed the sides of my mouth when the tiramisu got too messy. I laughed listlessly as he told story after story about Sicily, his father occasionally jumping in and editing the narration some. At one point, my father rose and my mother followed.

"We must be going, Rene and I need to run an errand." I looked up at Edward longingly, hating the dreadful feeling of leaving his side. I suppose I didn't hate him. I suppose I didn't love him. I rather _fancied_ him. "Bella, you will be alright with the Cullencianos? A driver can be sent to return you to the house when you chose so. Your mother and I are needed down at the station. I'd hate to have to drag you away from such a…entertaining supper." His eyes held a glint of hope, as if I would be doing an ultimate sacrifice by staying. I nodded slowly and settled back into Edward's embrace. I enjoyed being with him, hearing his heartbeat so close to mine, laughing at all of his stories. He was a wonderful person, once you got pass the rough exterior.

That was the thing about my dad. You never knew when he was lying. And why was he taking my mom down to the station with him? She was dressed far too nice, and he hated letting anyone of us in that place. "Then I'll see you guys later." I smiled at my mother and father, who didn't even spare me a farewell hug or kiss. My dad offered to help with the tab, but Carlisle blatantly refused.

"No, Charlie. Edward and I will take full care of it. It was our pleasure meeting your whole family today." He shook hands with my dad and Esme placed feather kisses onto their cheeks. Rene and Charlie took their coats and walked out of the restaurant without a second glance back at me. They never left me with anyone; especially at a restaurant- my dad was way too paranoid. Especially not with near strangers. My mom trusted no woman she hadn't been in a Women's Club with for years.

Edward bent down to me and touched my nose with the soft pad of his index finger. I almost felt like I was apart of a lover's silent moment. We zoned out the conversation his family was having; he was going to utter a soft word to me when resilient gunshots flew through the building. Screams erupted from the room, one of them Alice's. I shut my eyes tight and held my body rigid as a board, barely registering that Edward had tackled me to the floor, my satin dress catching a third of my fall. I clutched onto Edward, as if he could make the angry ammunition go away with a lift of his hand. My heart skipped a beat and I tired hard to keep a steady breath. I was that close- so close to being shot, and possibly killed. I looked around and saw Emmett facing his back to the large paned windows, Alice coddled to him tightly. Carlisle nearly lay on top of Esme, praying to whatever god that was out there that nothing horrible would come of this.

What was the business my father and Mr. Cullenciano were there to speak about anyway?


	2. Sacrifice

I cried into my hands as I sat on Alice's high bed. There were no words I could scream, there were no journal entries I could write that would express the hurt and pain inside of my heart. This was the price. This was the price I had to pay on behalf of my father and mother. I wiped my wet hands on the sides of my old Vinenelli dress I owned and sighed. I remembered my dad bought the dress in Milan when he and my mother vacationed there a few years ago. The mention of my parents made my throat dry and it began to throb all over again. The soft leather shoes I wore were more like ballet slippers than anything, except these were the new ones. The latest style, I always gushed. I was close to vomiting, but I knew it was no use. I wasn't sick. I was heartbroken.

As I rested my body weight against a hard bedpost, I faintly remembered something my mother told me long before all of this.

_She was no flapper girl. Rene Swan was no trollop. But sometimes, a woman did what she had to in order to keep her family and home silent and still. Knowing all of this, I still could not see my mom in another light other than the one that painted a dark red "A" onto her dress. Rene pinned her hair back slowly, relishing in the way it felt to have it lay lazily along her back, like a real housewife. When it was up and sparkly with all of her expensive hair combs and clips, she was a showgirl. Not a wife. Not a daughter. Not a mother. "Mom." I murmured. When the sound escaped my lips, she snapped her eyes to meet mine in her heart-shaped vanity. _

"_Isabella." Her brisk tone sent me a step back. Just a few hours before, she was allowing me to pick out my favorite flavor of ice cream at the local market, where everyone said a polite "Hello, Mrs. Swan" or "See you at tomorrow's Women's Club council, Rene". I knew my mom dressed up and left the house late at night. At first, I slept through the noise of her leaving and locking up. Mrs. Hallowell often babysat me, but most of the time I was left to sleep. Sometimes I cried when I heard the gust of wind swish through the large, wooden door to our modern home. But when I awoke, Mrs. Hallowell was always gone and Rene was always waiting with homemade blueberry pancakes and freshly squeezed orange juice in a 'big girl' glass cup. That was when I thought my father would be away for just a year, when I was just nine years old._

_Now that I looked back, I wondered how she did it. Entertained men all night to make the mortgage and groceries, then come home and take care of a saddened, curious little girl. My father set up a monthly bill that was synced to us, but it never was enough. For the first month, Mrs. Hallowell gave us enough food for a meal or two. She often invited us over for dinner. I knew that was a blessing. We wouldn't starve. As the story was told to me when I was a little over sixteen, my dad was incarcerated for "suspicious actions" and wouldn't be released until I was eleven years old. Between paying for my school, the necessities of the house, her Women's Club fees, the house mortgage, and the repairs for our new automobile, there was not nearly enough money. Then there were all of the little things- a toy for an unsuspecting little girl who worried her pigtails off, the paperboy, the milk boy, hospital fees on a payment plan, and the donations to church every Sunday. The petty dollars wired to my mother were not enough. If my mom had not acted as swiftly as she did, we would have been homeless, starving, and exiled out of our society. But my mom was a fighter. My mom was smart._

"_You will understand. Not right now, but when you are older." She bent down, her silk robe flowing beneath her. Thanks to her quick, high paying work she could afford nice things again. I clutched Susie, my all-time favored doll with red, stringy yarn for hair, to my chest protectively and nodded. All adults promised that with time, came wisdom. I was waiting patiently, or so I thought. "My family- you and me, we make sacrifices. Mommy is making hers."_

_I nodded, finding that perfectly smart. "What is my sacrifice then?" I knew completely what a sacrifice was. With my mom's high vocabulary, along with my dad's wonderful argument skills, I was highly prepared for life. I was almost ten by then, and my dad was nowhere to be seen._

_My mother's smile was breathtaking as she kissed my cheek. "Being a good girl for mommy is enough, darling." I used to love when she called me that. It made me feel so regal; it made me feel like I was almost as beautiful as she was. Her curls played against her face, and I promised myself that one day I would have shiny, gallant hair like hers._

"Bella." Edward's voice came from the doorway. I looked up at him with still eyes, my body tensing, and then relaxing when he sat on the bed with me and grasped my hand. "My father has just contacted Charlie. He says he and your mother are fine." I sucked in a breath that shook my body. The lipstick I wore had long gone. When did it first disappear? After my second glass of Pinot Grigio, or before my Tiramisu? I couldn't quite remember. "They're on their way now to a safe house on the Swiss County."

"You're lying." I shot at him quickly. He looked taken aback for a few moments. His face contorted the anger I knew he felt. It was so easy to rile him up.

"Isabella, you have to trust me-"

"Trust? Trust!" I cried incredulously. "You expect me to trust you? I don't know what you're playing at, but it can't be the truth! My mom and dad would never leave me like this. Never." I whimpered, simmering on the idea that they would, if it saved their asses.

Edward kept a steady grip of my hand, making sure that I knew he was much stronger. "Your father is in a lot of trouble. He needed to get away, quick like. It's too dangerous for you to travel that far. Especially alone." He rubbed the pad of his thumb across my hand, soothing me little to none.

"With the law?" I steadied my breathing, trying to hide all of my conflicting feelings. This time, my mother would not dance for men's pleasure to take care of us. He took her with him. But if he was in trouble with the law, he would be on the Wanted posters they put up at corner lampposts and public market walls. I would be lucky if I got a job in this dam forsaken city after such a scandal as that. Would I be able to live alone? Of course! Of course, I could, if I really wanted to. I could go back to Washington and be thankful of the people who pitied me. When my dad had come back from _vacation_ when I was close to the summer of my twelfth year, the whole town was abuzz with rumors of the scandal. My mother and I were content. Our real friends still had us for brunch and my mom's Women's Club thought brave of her, raising me all by herself. A couple years later, Charlie moved us to Illinois, where he had somehow got taken up as Chief of police. I scoffed at that to myself, in quiet mental musings. Who would hire a man to run a police station when he had just been persecuted himself?

"No." Edward's mouth formed into a stern line. He inhaled deeply and exhaled quietly. His thick hand ventured to my face and held it, my cheek pressed affectionately to him. "Our rivals. They weren't there for him, Isabella." He scooted closer to me and pulled me so that they were as close as humanly possible. "They were shooting at you." His tense shoulders and the dark circles forming under his eyes. Why was he so worried? I was sure his family had seen enough shootings for a good penny worth. So what was with the anxiety?

"Your rivals? Than why me? I've never done anything mean to them." He chuckled at my petty words. That was the only reason I saw there to be- people usually shot at other people when they had been mean to them. Although the shooting of a gun could not be justifiable no matter how you looked at it.

"The Riosetto Clan, I suppose. Do you not know how influential your father is?" I nodded. He had a lot of influence on Chicago's society, and especially our country club, where he was a local celebrity. When I voiced this, Edward smirked and shook his head. "Not that kind of influence." He sighed and looked at me again. He was so ready to explain everything to me, and I knew it- and I was anticipating it. I was always brushed off, put to the sidelines when it came to the facts about the man my dad truly was. "Bella, we should get married." He spoke as if he were allowing a silent, deadly breath escape him.

"Married?" I parroted. "That's so outlandish to say. We hardly know each other. And I am no moll." I replied fiercely, snatching my hand out of his. Was this some game to him? Did he assume that by marrying, everything would change? That I would somehow fall into step with the madness that was most definitely the Cullencianos?

"If anyone were to call you that, I would have them dead on the spot. When it comes to money and power, doll, I have it all. At my fingertips," he held out his hands to show me, "a man, any man, can be shot and not thought about twice, lest even remembered." I cringed at his words. I could not call him out about it. It was all true. He did have that kind of power. His whole family had that kind of money. Though the Swans lived comfortably, we didn't own more than two homes and Christmas in Cabot was never an option. The Cullencianos could have another country under their Christmas tree if the baby girl of the family so pleased. "You don't like bullets? Fine. I can have their necks broken." He spoke easily, as if he really were trying to console me.

I shook my head. "I can't marry you, Edward. I don't know you." I answered honestly. I didn't hate him; he knew that much from our encounter at dinner. "I've rejected proposals for more." I offered a polite smile.

"You want to marry the man you love, then?" A contrary snort escaped his mouth. "You will love me. It may take time, but I have all the time in the world, Isabella Swan. But your parents don't." He brought me onto his lap and forced chin to face towards him. "You have already been bartered, Bella. For the protection of Charles and Rene, I have you as my wife. My willing, charming, compliant wife. One that is respectful and kind, to her husband and his associates- though you won't see many of them. It's a deal that has already been made. Cross me by refusing your end, and your parents ride to Swiss County will be that of a short one."

I eyed him wearily. "You mean to say that you would threaten to hurt-"

"No. I would never hurt something that would in the end, hurt you." He held me softly. "But if for a minute my men aren't watching them, your parents will be dead."

"But are they even my parents?" I spat angrily, retching myself from the bed and into a madman pacing. "Who would sell their own daughter for protection? What kind of animal do they think I am?"

"By marrying me, you will receive better protection than they ever could. Your name will be blessed with the good wishes of the Cullencianos. Our children will most definitely reap the benefits." I internally made a sour face at the word "children".

"And what of the ailments wished upon you? Will I also receive them?" How could I even consider a ludicrous thing as this? I would die a coward if I opted to marry him rather than face the evil that threatened my life.

"Any man foolish enough will be dead by my own hands." His voice was sincere, his face was beautifully sculpted, and his hold on me was so reassuring. I felt so safe. I felt so secure. I didn't want to face the evil- not alone, anyway.

I closed my eyes and leaned into him. "Why, Edward? Why are you doing this?"

He shifted me so that I was on back on the bed, he hovering above me. "I am doing this to protect my gem, my beautiful piece of treasure that no one else can have." His words made my face warm and tingling, as was the rest of my body when he set his hands firmly on both sides of my head. My body dipped into her bed, Edward's weight helped none. "I want to help you. Not as a friend, but as a husband. As a lover." He murmured into my ear. "I want to know that you breathe every minute of a hundred years in safe arms. If any accident should befall you, let it be the accident of your love for me. I certainly cannot promise love for you, because I'm just not that type of chap." His breathtaking smirk made my heartbeat jump. "But I will treasure every minute of everyday with you, Bella Swan."


	3. The Italians Way

"Cullenciano?" Jacob Black slammed the paper down beneath his thick, tanned hands. His perfect, pearly teeth shown through his plump lips, giving the perfect persona of someone livid. But that was just the thing. He was more than livid. "Impossible." He muttered, more to himself than the rest of the house. That was not possible. Bella Swan had sworn not to marry a man, especially one in the business. At least, that was the excuse he had been given last year. He scoffed bitterly, shredding the tabloid and tossing it into the fire. Bella wouldn't make this easy to walk away from. He knew that quite well.

"Hallon?" The temptress that had warmed his bed the past few days was both enticing and wild, but she was nothing near his fantasies like Isabella Swan was. Sweet, virginal Bella. Bella would never call him by his slumlord nickname, _Hallon_, which was acquired through many years of hounding tired men and emitting womanly shrieks from the manliest man you could fathom. Jacob rolled his eyes, but abruptly left his Study in the call of his playmate. She was a fine distraction. Nothing in resemblance to the main prize, yet a filling ration to satire his needs for a time being.

Bella POV-

Forty days. It had been forty days since my parents disappeared off of the face of this earth, or as Edward said it, "the Swiss County". I knew that was bologna. I knew he would never tell me where they really were. Emmett, who owned a long line of printing shops, made our engagement and my parents' "long-term vacation" front page news, and the utmost believable. I almost believed they were just on vacation, and that they'd come back soon enough to me. Even as he held my hand and cuddled me to him as he read a man's magazine over my head, I wondered if he had ulterior motives. Perhaps he needed my dad completely out of the picture? Maybe my dad was content to be out gone with a few perks the Cullencianos provided- all at the small price of me. I squirmed a little, the satin material of my nightgown lifting up my thigh. I ignored it, feeling that if I moved to push it down it would only show my weakness around him. He and I were adults. We could handle ourselves. "Edward, if you could have wings or marry me which would you chose?" I sprung the question as an escape from my time-consuming thoughts.

He lifted his eyes from the glossy pages and glanced down at me. "What would I ever need wings for?" His logical approach was just what I needed. Edward never allowed excess- things came to him in the exact amount he wished for; no more, no less than expected. 'Perks' didn't exist in his world.

"Okay then," I shrugged and played with his thumb between my two fingers, "what is something you wish you always had?" I was curious as to what his answer would be. When I was younger, I had always wanted a grand stallion, but when I grew out of the phase, I then wanted to go to University and one day have a highly respected career. I of course voiced thus to my father. A few days later, I owned Abby, a raven colored Arabian Stallion. One of my wishes came true, but it was a wish I no longer had.

His sly smirk answered all of my questions. "You, Isabella." The first few times he said my name, I had an instinctual way of flinching. Now it was almost calming to hear him say my name.

"That's not fair, Edward. What's something else you've wanted, other than me?" I felt silly saying that phrase, but it was to merely amuse my bored mind. He looked at me for a minute or say, relishing in the way he made me squirm in nervousness. His emotionless golden eyes left my face and went back to his reading.

"When I was five, Carlisle promised me a toy train set if I behaved correctly with our nanny, who was a truly wicked woman. I looked forward to that train so badly I dreamt about it nearly every night for those two weeks before my father would be back from his trip. I remember telling myself, you're so close, yet I couldn't wait long enough. I began to act out wildly with Trussa, whom quit as soon as my father arrived back in Chicago. I never received the toy. When Carlisle offered to buy it for my birthday that year, I blatantly refused. I didn't touch a toy train for the rest of my childhood."

"Because of your stupid pride?" I looked up at him, studying his face. His eyes didn't flicker, nor did his mouth ever curve into that wondrous smile of his. Perhaps that childhood encounter had scarred him? Wouldn't it be something ironic if that toy train was the reason he was as prickly as an adult. Ha! It was something to laugh about.

"No, because of the principle. I punished myself for not having restraint, for not having enough self-control. Composure is not something you can practice for a few days and think you've got it mastered. I was training myself with something very useful. Pride had nothing to do with it." He shifted his eyes from the words and to my face. "Is that what you wanted to know? That the only thing I crave almost as badly as you is a childish item?" His mouth was set in a grim line. He hated questions. He hated when people poked their noses into his business; I knew that, but I just couldn't help it.

We didn't speak much after that. He left for work every morning at the same time; he dressed in his impeccable suits, all sending the same message. He smelled like money and masculinity when he kissed my cheek before he clasped his briefcase. I dared myself to someday tell him farewell in the daylight. But then, I had to dislike him. If I got in silly habits like that, habits that people like my mother and father were used to, I would spiral down- dusty ego and battered heart in hand.

"Edward." I heard myself sigh in content. Since when did that name ever sound so good? I felt a warm pair of lips graze my skin, emitting stubby goose bumps in their trail. I remembered falling into a deep slumber about eight, right after having dealt with my cousin's newfound heartache over some kid named Donald…or was it Dillon? I wrapped my arms around the figure leaning over me, my brain slowly recognizing just who I was holding onto. His shoulders tensed before relaxing roughly, his body weight pressed against me. I nearly gasped when I felt his arms encircle my back and bring me forward. The dim light form the hallways and the tiny speck of the moon that shined past our curtains were the only light sources, yet they reflected off of him so brightly I was blinded. Lust swept over my body and I couldn't find the ability to speak.

I was half stunned, half mesmerized. I conceded as he placed me on his lap, my legs curling up with me. He kept me close, and we were in the picturesque view of wondrous lovers. It was nice to feel that way- to feel so loved and safe. Being in the modern townhouse in the middle of a booming city- the target home of many ruthless men never helped me sleep much. But now I was here with Edward- the outskirts of the smog haven; everything would be alright.

I wasn't sure what was going on. There weren't hungry ministrations nor were there dominating movements. He only looked at me with his smoldering glance- the one that could melt ice. "What's wrong, Edward?" I had to ask. There was no way he just felt the need to hold me in a lover's embrace this late at night, on an odd Wednesday. And we weren't lovers anyway. There were no embraces thus far. I looked at him with concern- the kind of concern you had for your friend when you replayed a horrid dream you had about them, or when they were coming off the high of a pregnancy scare. At least, that was what I told myself.

I was rocked to the core when he placed a small kiss on my forehead and smiled- it was a small, inconsiderate smile, yet a smile nonetheless.

**Edward POV-**

I couldn't take it anymore. Her, in my bed. Me, pretending to be platonic with the goddess of my fantasies. I knew she hated me for being such a "cold, hard person", but it was the way I knew to be best. I couldn't give her the man she wanted- I could only be myself. Our marriage needed to be valid- the underground world needed to know that she was untouchable in every way. Who ever was stupid enough to have the horrible lick they did shot at my princess those weary months ago. Charlie Swan was a shitty excuse for a protector, so now I was her guardian, and soon her husband. But all of my keen plans seemed to disperse when she approached the subject of my childhood. Those were times I didn't like to think about, or even reenact. Bella Swan was curious, persistent- stubborn.

We didn't talk for a few weeks after she asked. In a sum of three months, I grew closer to the brink of obsession more and more. It was an impulsive thing at first. Visiting her favorite diners on Friday afternoons, just because I knew she would be there. It began when she was fourteen, I was nineteen. The new chief of police and his sweetheart of a daughter. The picture was priceless, actually. After a few weeks, the moments where she would occasionally share a sip of a different boy's shake killed me, so I refused to allow myself the torture. I kept a private eye on her, one that kept boys a respectable distance away from her, but nothing more. I was there, deep in the crowd, when she received the Social Achievement Award for Chicago's United Talent, and I was there for every theatrical play she was a part of. Her upscale ballet performances, tediously long pageant trials, and every parade she rode in on a float- of which I later learned that she wanted no part in. It seemed Rene Swan motivated her daughter to be a part of that all to gain points for her future. Bella didn't think she needed points at all. I dressed in my most suave for her high school graduation.

My father knew of my fondness for Bella, and in retrospect of the Swans, he didn't make his move until she was of age. I, personally, had no respect for Charlie Swan. He was kind of father figure, and for being the Chief of Police of Chicago, he struck no fear into the criminals whatsoever. Hence why the agreement came about. It seemed Chief Swan was also aware of the fact. He knew he needed protection, especially with the criminals he wasn't already dealing with. Charlie Swan handled dealers everywhere from heroin, to female bartering. Our contract, one between the Cullencianos and the Swans, were that if the youngest barbs of each line were to marry, an infinity-long span of protection would be available. It was perfect, really. I would be in possession of my own emotions and starvation now.

"What's wrong, Edward?" Her voice was a melody I wanted to hold onto.

So why was it that I came straight home from a particularly bad night of business, instead of filling up on a good fifth of the good stuff? As I held her close to me, I suddenly realized why. I needed her. I needed to feel her beside me. I needed to know that she would help me keep my sanity. Dwight Marinell had made a threat over the phone about having one of my most prized rookies (Alice's boyfriend) by a chord- and I doubted that threat. My biggest mistake was taunting the fucking beast. By the time Emmett and Thello got there, Dwight and his wankers were gone- Reynaldo's brains were splattered along the walls of that not-so-low-key warehouse. Emmett's Tommy was ready and loaded- and all he came back with was the face of a man whom was used to losing. Nothing was supposed to harm a Cullenciano, but to be honest; we had all grown a certain fondness of Reynaldo Fomosa- what Alice and he had been much more. It was always so innocent- so _fun_ for them. They were the same age, same smile, yet different lifestyle.

"Love me, Bella." I murmured to her. She seemed to be half immersed in sleep, half perplexed by me. But like the wonderfully obedient girl she was, Isabella nodded and laid her head against my chest. Isabella, above everyone else, knew what duty was. Duty was keeping the ones she loved safe. I wanted to tell her the truth- so very badly. But it wasn't the right time. Emmett made a sly comment just the day before when I lost myself in a picture of her that, "Ed, there's never going to be a right time,", and that was true.

**A/N: So, the tables are turned on our favorite people? Poor Alice! Votes for a major part of this story- **

**Does Alice take it hard?**

**Do Edward and Emmett never tell her?**

**Your votes count! More pairings to come, and maybe even some more Jacob screen time? Keep reading and send in those wonderful reviews!**


	4. Alice's Lullabye

"I should have known. Marinell isn't a man that plays." Edward spilled the truth to me as we lay on the bed, beneath the silent ceiling fan and the golden curtain of our bed.

"It's not your fault." I kissed his forehead and held him closer. My arms wrapped around him, my body clad tight to his. It was a warm spring, but being close so him was good enough weather. "You couldn't have known that kind of thing-"

His chuckle stopped me. "These things never happen. Isabella, nothing happens if I don't want it to." I wanted to wipe the cocky tone out of his mouth by saying that if that was true, there wouldn't be a dead man on his conscious. But I second thought it, thinking that it was too low of a blow- too soon. "This is a war I've been avoiding. Shipments have been off for the past two months, I have a collection of threat letters, my men are getting odd calls all through the night, and I've had to take care of _several_," he stressed that one word, "double-crossers."

"Vengeance is going to be your death." I whispered into his chest, my hands playing with his one large one. It was dark, the moon having faded away with the clouds. The hallway light was dimmer than ever, and his eyes glowed. I hated that what I said was so true. Why couldn't he let this go? Call a truce? Draw up a contract of peace?

"A death men are proud to bestow." He sighed and nestled his head into the crook of my shoulder. His light breaths played against my hair, which tickled my cheek ever so lightly. His short hair was soft enough to lie with, yet the hard gel had long since died from its day of hard work- _stressful_ work.

I held a breath, still adjusting to our positions. Since when did I allow him to hold me? Since was it alright for him to be so close? "Don't leave me." My broken soul couldn't take someone else leaving me. Whether or not I wanted to believe it, I had no one but Edward. He had no response, only held me tighter to him. We fell asleep like that and didn't wake 'til the late afternoon, which was spent lazily flirting and eating on trays the house-help brought us. I forgot that the next day was Thursday, and not a weekend. He skipped work to stay with me and do absolutely nothing. It felt wonderful to know that he cared for me- they weren't just words now. They were something.

**Monday**-

I blinked a few times and decided to cross my legs. Alice choked the strap of her poor purse, which was ironically Chanel. Her soft blue dress and new shiny black shoes made her the perfect debutante in my book. My mother often made me into an award-winning society gal. Alice was just that, and so naturally. "He hasn't called. That wiseguy." She swallowed visibly and played with the soft material of Edward's couch. "Makes me look like a coumare." She rolled her eyes. I flushed at her use of slang, and slander upon her part. From what I knew, a coumare was a mistress of a man- a man of the mafia, that is.

"Alice." I started softly and placed my hand on her knee. The designs on her panty hoes were too explicit for me. I stuck to soft white stockings and conservative heels. Her large, nearly hazel eyes caught mine in a moment that nearly embarrassed me. "He…Reynaldo, he-" My breath caught in my throat. Why was this so hard? I didn't even know the lad. But this part…this part of my soul that belonged to the sweet Alice Cullenciano cringed when her eyes went unblinking and her hold on her purse loosened, sending the garb to the floor. I felt my throat constrict, and his pain of being shot went right through me. I imagined what the horrible man looked like when he killed Alice's love. I could see all of the blood dancing along the walls. My stomach churned.

"No. No." She shook her head and the small muscles in her jaw worked themselves into frenzy. Her crystal blue eyes and the modern hair cut she had framed her face; she made crying look beautiful. "No, no, no, no, no." Her eyes skirted around, taking in the soft fabric of our couches, the beige colors of the walls, the glass vas that housed a million lilies, and perhaps the specks of dirt Edward's faithful dog Leopold trudged in that morning.

I folded my hands in my lap. Composure. Composer, Bella. "Alice, I'm so sorry." I held out my hand, yet she only looked at it.

"What can you be sorry for?" Her wet eyes, which bled her thick mascara, made me want to back away and retire for the rest of the week. "It's only just begun." Her small voice was void of her reassuring drawl, that all-knowing way she foresaw things. "And that's," Alice sobbed into her fist, of which she brought to her mouth, "…the worst…part." I embraced her in what I felt was as real as it would get. We lounged on the crème sofa and listened to a jazz tape on the recorder. I didn't even need to stuff it with cloth like I did when I lived with my parents. We let it play loud as it drained away our sorrows. Alice kicked off her shoes and lay close to me, her small body fitting next to me. I felt as if she were my sister, or even my daughter. I felt as if a million little needles had attacked my heart and with it, my capability to breathe properly went.

**Wednesday-**

"You're acting like an uptown today, Isabella." I spun on my heel and glared him down. I wore the lavender stilettos Alice bought me before the fallout, and with it, I wore my heart on my sleeve. Edward was being so cruel. It had been a little over a week since I told Alice what happened, and later that day, we would lay him to rest.

"Excuse me?" I kept eye contact, something he didn't like. It was an authority factor, I assumed. "Oh, right." I sent a sarcastic smile his way. He knew I hated that word! "I should perhaps be a flig like you." I sneered at him and stormed off, locking myself in our room and took out my frustration on my hair. I curled it with the hot iron and nearly burned a piece off. My finger got too close to the scorching metal and it seared through the pad of my finger. I swore under my breath, making my face warm. Edward never used swear words in front of me, he was too much of a gentleman, but I had picked up on some from my own childhood and Emmett's quick temper. I couldn't take the sting for long and swung the open the door. On the other side, Edward was standing there, his hand cocked as if we going to attempt to open it. I tried to walk past him, but he slammed his hand in front of my face, trapping me. I rolled my eyes. "Please. I burned my finger.' I held it up for his inspection.

He scrutinized it and held it gingerly. My eyebrows knitted together. Since when was he the general surgeon? I thought he was going to let it go, but he tricked me by pulling me closer. Between the pad of thumb and his forefinger, he squeezed the red digit. It was cruel, really. I emitted a yelp of pain and tried my hardest to pull it away from him. It seemed he knew torture tactics better than the rest. "Take it back." He murmured his voice full of his arrogant way of being. I shook my head and yanked one more time. "Choke on your words. Tell me I'm not a flig, and I'll stop." He demanded through clenched teeth.

I was going to grit my teeth and fight, but my whole hand was on fire by then. I nodded, apprehensively, then very quickly. "Okay. You aren't a flig…I'm sorry!" I yelped and he let go. I brought the offended part to my chest and clutched it there. My eyelashes were wet from the pain that was shooting through my phalanges. When he reached for my hand, I snatched it away with as much vigor as I could. I would not be calling him a flig. Ever.

"Bella." He sighed, his face looking a lot older than he was. He grabbed my hand and brought the finger to him again. I shut my eyes against the pain I knew was coming. Instead, I felt the utmost comfort; like a cocoon was surrounding my soreness. When I felt a wet caress, my eyes shot open and snapped to him. The pad of my digit was enveloped by his mouth; shudders of an excitement I knew nothing off ran down my spine.

When he took his last feats, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped it clean. "Saliva is the best treatment." He winked at me. I nodded and turned away, back to my vanity where I continued with my hair. I didn't need that icepack after all.

A few hours later brought us under the shade of a weeping willow; that was a cruel analogy to Alice. She was a weeping mess, up from her large shades to her peep-toed shoes. I stood rooted next to Edward, his arm wrapped possessively around my waist. The mood was resilient and everything around us seemed to have no color. I felt like the noise of the world had stopped, even the ring of bells couldn't wake from my stupor. Emmett stood beside me, his hand shaking and his eyes hidden. They all wore sunglasses to shield from the light. It was a chilly, sunny day- if that were even possible. Their light pea coats and standard style slacks made the mood of the funeral even harder to bear. "And, today we put to rest the soul of a man whom we all cared for. Reynaldo Fomosa." The name brought a soft pucker of lips from Alice.

When the twenty-one gun shots rang through the air, Alice flinched at every filter. No one could feel her pain, less Rey's mother and father. Each parent sat on either side of her. The graveyard was filled with people to pay their respects, and for that I smiled. All of these people…here for just one man. I silently wondered who would show up to my memorial services. But thinking like that could take my mind places I hated going. It seemed Reynaldo Fomosa was in the service before he joined the Cullencianos, which was impressive. I felt a chill come over me, and I knew it wasn't from the breeze. I eyed Edward, long enough for him to look back down at me. No, it wasn't him. I looked around the party, and what did my shielded eyes find?

Beneath the lace net of my cap, I saw the boy turned man of my childhood. Jacob Black.


	5. Cravings

"That was his favorite." Alice mused form behind her menu. I swallowed nervously, praying to the good Christian god that she wouldn't burst into tears at that very moment. She only shook her head, as if it was distasteful to serve such a food after its biggest fan was put to eternal sleep. "He hated this restaurant." She chuckled and looked up at me through her eyelashes. "Rey said this place had too much class for folks like me and him. I would always remind him who my family was, and he had the same reply each time." Her eyes were wet, and her false lashes were heavy with shame. "_That won't matter long, Alice. We'll be our own family soon enough._" She put a different tone into her words, as if she were his life link to this world- in her words, Reynaldo would live forever. "God, he didn't even know a lick of Italian. My dad hated it." Her face was contorted. A half smile, half sob. "I love him so much, Bella. So much that it hurts." I treasured the way that Alice spoke of him in the present tense, as if he were still on earth, breathing- waiting for her at her apartment.

We left not long after. Alice seemed to be having stomach pains quiet often, followed with a depressing headache. Esme feared for her only daughter's health, and so did I. When I voiced these fears to Edward, he merely brushed them off. Now, as I hovered over Alice, who was going through her closet she kept at our- _Edward's_ home, I was relieved to know she was feeling somewhat better. But as she came across a large, oversized polyester top, I automatically knew her retort. "It's his." Her soft voice whispered, and her nose was buried deep into the fabric. The last name on the other side of the jersey was his. The letters that spelt "Fomosa" were pressed against her small cheekbone. "It doesn't smell like him anymore." And she burst into more tears. Later, I held her hair back as she vomited a dark green substance I attempted to wince away to avoid. She was sobbing as she vomited, and she vomited as she cried.

"Sometimes I just lie there, thinking of him all night. And then sometimes I can't even _think_." Alice spoke after washing herself and changing into a soft linen nightgown, one that I wasn't afraid to get the contents of her stomach splattered on. "I wish I could go back to that moment and save him, Bella. I wish with all of my might." She put her fist to her mouth, as she was savvy of doing to quiet her sobs. It was useless, seeing as we were alone on the top floor of the Victorian style home on the outskirts of Chicago. While Edward was doing business in the city, I chose to stay in our outer-city home, and he would sleep in his spacious penthouse. We occasionally met, but on such occasions he would overflow my arms with gifts and tackle my senses with my favorite flowers. It was more often than not that he would stay more than a week with me. "I'm forgetting what his voice sounds like." Her soft words and broken intakes of breath made me squirm. Was I too comfortable listening to her sorrows?

Her words were like poetry; none of this seemed real. It was as if I was engaged in a book of Dickenson's collection of poems- ones that swept you away with a whirlwind of emotions. Alice's trauma was my meaning; I believed I was chosen by some otherworld force. Perhaps I was supposed to be intrigued by her open display of human feelings- maybe it was a destiny to teach me the ways of heartbreak. It had been a good two months or so now. His image was forever burned in Alice's mind, and there was no way to shake his lingering spirit that hovered above her, like a wicked curse put on a noble, yet sly man. "My cousin is visiting tomorrow. Just for a day before she has to go back to the city. I think you'll quite favor her." I tried my hardest to cheer her up. It wasn't right for such a small body to be put through so much pain. But then again, it wasn't right for anyone to feel horrible at all.

She only feigned a small smile and nodded. "That sounds wonderful." I had to admire her will. Had it been someone else, they would have collapsed within themselves with such heartache. But not she- not Alice. Never Alice.

"Her name's Rosalie, but we call her Rosa. Ironic that she hates it." I chuckled, trying my hardest to shine some light on it all. Alice nodded and made polite inquiries about her before retiring for the night. I made sure Rena, the housekeeper that stayed on grounds with me, escorted her to bed. I was going to retire also before the telephone rudely rang throughout the house. There were only two of them in the whole place, but my parents owned fewer. I dashed for the receiver, fearing that Alice would be wakened by such a noise. The exuberant red phone was down in the foyer, and this one in the upstairs hallway. "Hello?" I spoke directly into the phone. It was the end of the third decade of the century thus far, and life was quietly pleasant for me.

"Bella?" Edward's low pitch made my cheeks flush. Why had I hoped so badly that it was him? Even with so much space between us, I could feel his chest flush against my back. Miles could not separate our bodies, it would seem.

"Yes?" I feigned an indifferent voice, not wanting him to realize my slip. I glanced at Alice's door. Silence. Unlike me, Alice didn't have loud nightmares or realistic ones at least. When I asked why that was, she would bitterly chuckle and respond "_Because I'm in too much of a nightmare realistically."_ It hurt to hear.

He was silent on his end for awhile. "I miss you, Isabella." The accent he put on the "Isa" made my toes curl in giddiness. My right hand gripped the phone and my index finger twirled through the wires that connected our voices.

"I miss you too, Edward." I finally said, meaning every word. In retrospect, he agreed with me to stay in town for a few weeks so just Alice and I could have private time in the country. I figured she needed to steer clear of her overprotective brothers, and all of the fighting they did with each other. It wouldn't help if Edward and I went into one of our brawls, either- and that one was probably more inevitable than the first.

We were only on day seven. "How is she?" His voice bordered on exhaustion and muskiness. It was a dynamic concoction for my senses.

"Alice is strong. She cries…and I feel like it's me who lost a lover." I murmured into the phone, trying to relay the message to him as quietly as I could. "Her tears hurt me, Edward. It's as if I feel exactly what she feels, but I know its not even one caliber of her pain. It's horrible." I admitted to him, growing teary-eyed. I hadn't cried since the day she and I shared a cup of tea at the local Tea Market after Reynaldo's services. It was when she let everything pour out for the first time, and it was the first time she told just how serious they were. It seemed she had given him _everything_.

"You won't ever lose me, Bella. Than-…thank you, for being there for my sister. You don't have to be this devoted. Your parents will still be protected-"

"Edward, stop! Alice is my friend… my only friend I have. We're going to be married in a few months. So, this is my family." I declared into the phone. It seemed I had more vigor in me than I assumed. When had I started to care so much for the evil, vile, unchristian-like Cullencianos?

_When I found how human they really were._

"What are you wearing?" His voice turned to a full-blown husky drawl. That's what he always did- whenever I said or did something he was _proud_ to hear, he would turn all hot and bothered. I looked down at my cotton nightie and grimaced.

"The truth?" I asked bitterly. I bit my lip, hoping he wouldn't grow angry from my lack of further arousal. I didn't doubt he had a lover, or two. Besides, what man could live without a woman's sensual touch for as long as he was currently resisting? I was hesitant in the matters of the consummation of our relationship. I could not yet give myself to him.

He surprised me by chuckling heartily. "I want to hold you. I want to feel your little body close to mine. You've got my penthouse mattress smelling like strawberries." I rolled my eyes at his corniness, but giggled at the prospect that he missed me- and vocalized it.

"Don't worry. The smell should fade away within the next wash." I laughed easily.

"I don't want it to." I blinked a few times before registering what he meant. Was he just wanting, and speaking out of pure lust-filled nonsense? Or was truthful- did he truly want my smell around him at all times. "I crave your smell, Bella. I crave you so much right now." He was a hundred miles away, yet I could feel the sincere whisper right against my earlobe, and I imagined sucking gently on the lobe like he was known to. And since Edward was animalistic, he didn't know the word "longing"- he only knew "crave", as if he were a historic caveman, or barbaric pirate.

"I need you right now, Edward." I was unsure of my own words, not knowing what I was getting myself into. But the truth was what the truth was- and he needed to know. Now or never, Bella Swan. I heard a growl from his end and a loud _thump_. I heard a shuffle of objects and the rustle of cloth. "Edward? Is everything okay?"

It sounded as if he had scattered a bunch of papers. "I'll be at the house in an hour." And with that, the receiver beeped loudly in my ear, signally he had dropped the call. I put it down quickly and brought my hand over my heart, not quite believing what was to happen. I scuttled to my room and quickly changed into an outfit I thought suitable. I felt foolish slipping into the satin slip as I threw on a matching robe. I tied the middle and sat on the bed he and I shared. With so little words, I set afire a man's uncontrollable lust. A deep red painted my face as I imagined how he would take me- what he would say. My hands were jittery and I could feel the numbness start in my fingertips. I paced the room nervously, stealing glances at the full-length mirror poking from my wardrobe. I paint my face with light makeup, not to be too blunt about my partake in this, but enough for my best features to be flaunted. I even fussed with my long hair for a few minutes. I decided that using the latrine now would probably come in use later.

When all was done, I was still a heap of anxiety. I ran a frustrated hand down my face and jumped off of the four poster bed. I went out, shutting my door softly and tiptoeing down the stairs. I poured half a glass of ginger ale. I gulped it down nervously and washed my mouth out afterwards. I spared a look at the clock and saw my disfigured reflection, I sneered at the fact that the false coloration of my lips was gone. I decided I would reapply the lipstick as soon as I drank more water. Water always calmed me. But as I finished the glass, I felt a pair of arms snake around my waist. I sighed in pure ecstasy when he placed fiery kisses along my neck and down my collarbone. I turned around and faced him. His eyes feasted upon me, and my enhanced features. I usually chose to wear no makeup. Makeup was often times a false pretense. In this case, it was my backbone. "Breath-taking." He murmured to me, running a hand down my cheek and cupping my chin to thrust his thrust onto mine more forcefully.

I replied with a gasp and held onto him. He hoisted my body on the counter and my legs automatically went around his waist. It really was a wonderful feeling; skin to skin contact…it was indescribable. The ripples of excitement…of that feeling at the pit of your stomach that says _more, more, I want more._ My fingers went through his hair and held myself tight to him, as if they knew what they were doing. "Pull my hair harder." He demanded.

I was puzzled. Who enjoyed having their hair pulled? I broke away from our kiss to catch a breath, and he continued to feast on my pearly skin. "What if I pull too hard and some falls out?" I questioned in between breaths. He laughed into my skin and kissed me again, silencing any future stupid questions. In the heat of the moment, Edward slid me along the marble countertop and knocked over a few plastic bowls that flew to the floor in our attempts to mold onto each other's skin. I giggled and hid behind Edward's collar. He pushed off my thin black robe and I refuted by busting the buttons of his Oxford. He smirked at me.

"A newfound sex kitten?" The way his accent twisted the word "kitten" into something so much more made me blush

"You were gone too long." I murmured in his ear. He groaned and picked me up from the counter by the sink. As he was turning the island, I began sucking on his lower lip, and it nearly drove him insane. He couldn't wait for the stairs, so he slammed me against the nearest wall, my bottom resting on a coffee table. "Edward!" I hissed lightly. My back would surely be sore the next morning, and perhaps even a bruise. But in the middle of the intimacy, I couldn't help but acknowledge that it was absolutely a turn on. Was that sick? Was that wrong? I had never done anything like that before; it was all so new.

"B-Bella?" I heard Alice's voice call out into the night. I gasped into his ear.

"Alice is awake!" I muttered in shock. I pushed him off of me and hopped off the table. I adjusted my clothing and ran to the kitchen to retrieve my robe. My fingers shook as I threw it on and tied it securely/ Edward came from behind me and began his ministrations all over again. "Edward, stop!" I said in frustration. Was he not afraid to be caught in the act in front of his little sister? "She'll be down anyone second!"

"Don't worry, Isabella. She's a sleepwalker." And as he said these words, her robotic-like body walked down the lit hallway and into the kitchen. She walked to the fridge, grabbed a broken cookie and walked away. I waited until I heard her footsteps creak along the staircase to finally sigh in relief. _Jeez, that was close_. I never knew that about her, though. How many times had she sleepwalked through the house, without me knowing? "Now, back to us-"

"No." I turned in his arms and placed a chaste kiss on his lips. He made it here in thirty minutes, so it wasn't like he had too long of a drive back. I couldn't risk him being here and stalling Alice's recuperation. She didn't want to see a man for a little while, especially one of her brothers. "I need to focus on Alice right now. I shouldn't have told you that on the phone-"

He silenced me with a long, drawn-out kiss. "Hush yourself. I needed to hear your voice- to see you. I needed to know you had wanted something I've been wanting for so very long." He smiled at my blush. "Bella, I've been waiting for the last four years. I believe I have it in me to wait just a little bit longer." I agreed, but he didn't leave just yet. We sat at the glass dinner table (the one I thankfully wasn't placed on) and conversed about everything. Mostly about how much we missed one another, the odd habits and wonderful scents, specifically. We kept our voices low. I was too afraid to raise my tone to that of a normal pitch. He never spoke specifically about business; he only said that it was keeping him busy enough. "It's good this all works out. By the time Alice has to go home, work will be taken care of for a few days. Meaning we'll have all the time we need." He held my hand as I walked him out to his car. It was late spring, almost summer and the night was still a bit chilly. I tiptoed on the pebbled gravel way towards his Rolls Royce, a car my mother always dreamed of owning. Before he left, I heard him mutter something, but I did not know what it was exactly. I smiled as I waved him off. His automobile (a real luxury, since not many owned them) rolled away peacefully. I went back inside. He had only been present an hour and the whole house smelled of him. The scent was most powerful in the kitchen. I stood there in utter silence and allowed my nose to be overtaken by the powerful aroma that was his.

"You love him." Alice's small voice caught me without my bearings. I looked towards the swinging doors and saw the outline and figure of her furtive body. "I'm sorry if I've kept you two apart. I don't mean to be a burden-"

"No, no, Alice! It was just…it was my fault." I instinctively tucked an escaped curl behind my ear and walked toward her. "I didn't know I would miss him that much."

She nodded and approached me. I then knew that was the wrong thing to say. I knew nothing of missing my boyfriend; she did. "You never do. Until they're gone." Her bitter smile left me in shambles before she walked away, back up the stairs and to her room.


	6. Meeting Rosa

"I'm sorry, Rosa." I spoke into the receiver. She had called from the phone offered at her hotel suite. I grimaced at the ill-looking Alice sitting against the arm rest of the couch. Rose had to stay in the city for the next few hours due to some fashion business, and by the time she was done, it would be too dark for her to drive. Rosa was a lady who preferred to drive. I didn't expect Alice to want to travel anywhere so soon. "But we're not quite ready for long trips-"

"Where?" Alice's inquisitive voice made me smile, thinking of the hyper Alice I remembered so fondly.

I put a hand on the speaker part of the receiver. "Rosalie wants to meet in the city, but I told her no-"

"Why?' And there was that Alice Cullenciano, the one that wouldn't let you get a word in edgewise if she didn't know all of the facts quick.

"Because…you're not feeling better yet, Ali-"

"Yes, I am! I'll get dressed in ten minutes, like lightening! Tell that cousin of yours we'll meet her… at Lorena's." She sent me a fast smile and bound up the stairs. I blinked rapidly, trying to let my brain register the series of event. I came back to reality when I heard my cousin's voice echo my name for the third time.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, Rosa. Well, I guess Alice is in high spirits today. She wants to meet at Lorena's." Rosa rambled off something to her assistant and swiftly gave me directions before hanging up. An hour later, my driver dropped us off and told me he'd be out around the side, where I would be able to "blend in" more easily. Only thing is, being engaged to Emmett is world-wide news. So, my face and favorite restaurants were worldly known.

"Miss Swan! What is it like-" Alice shoved off the notepads and high flash cameras as we were ushered briskly into the upbeat restaurant. Kurro, the biggest man of Edward's security, was assigned to me. I urged him to order something from the menu, but he insisted on keeping his bearings and standing post a few tables away.

"Vultures." Alice muttered beneath her breath. Rosalie showed up breathless a few minutes later, murmuring under her breath about some accident. "Hi, I'm Alice Cullen." Alice stuck her hand out in front of Rosa, forcing my bombshell of a cousin to smile politely and shake it. "You're Rosalie, I presume?" Alice had a bounce in her voice, the kind of bounce I missed hearing. Rosa nodded, slipping into her wooden seat and sighing.

"Any preference?" My cousin turned to Alice when looking at the wine list. Alice shook her head and launched into a story of her family's trip to a vineyard, and the adventures that ensued. Rosalie was a sucker for a good story, completely ignoring the waiter hovering above the table. I shooed him away, not daring to break the light-hearted moment Alice brought on. "How awfully embarrassing!" I could see the mental notes Rosalie was making; this tale would probably make a top-story column in her magazine, The Buzz. In my time, it was a scandal to run a company, it was certainly unheard of for a girl to have any credibility, and when she did, it was hard to be accepted. But Rosa was brave, strong, and absolutely fierce. After dinner, Rosa promised to meet up again soon. She left her business number and plaza address incase of an emergency and was off.

Our driver took a slow route back to the manor, and I was thankful. The scenerary was breath-taking, even more so than the smog and skyline of the big city. Alice was mostly quiet on the way back to the house. She spoke breifly about a shopping trip she took to California, and conversed about the new space program being constructed in Virgina. It amazed me that a girl of her stature could fit all of that energy and knowledge she possessed. When we settled back in at home and dressed for the evening, she sat against the back of the couch, a glass of white wine in her hand and a smooth record playing. "Thank you, Bella." She smiled up at me. I gave her a small smile and lifted my glass in a kind gesture. "You've helped me- I don't know... breathe." She took a sip of her glass and inhaled a shaky breath. "Reynaldo stole away my want for life, he took with him a part of myself I'll never get back." She gulped, but sent me a reassuring smile. "And I can't help admire him. He was- oh, I know I've spoken too much about him." She stopped short and condescendingly shook her head at herself.

"No, go ahead." I goaded her. "I love to hear you talk about him. Its like some lucid love affair." I giggled, and to her amusement, blushed like a schoolgirl at my brave, yet carefully chosen words.

"Okay, if you speak the truth." Alice winked at me. "Rey...he was a magnificent creature; he finished my trailed off thoughts, he knew my new favorite flower every month, he bought me shoes." Her eyes rounded in a lovely manner, her lips quirking just thinking about him. I failed to remind her that she was remincing about him, and no tears had yet to escape her beautiful, currently clear blue eyes. "He understood better than my own mother. He was always much calmer, more patient than any of my brothers." She scoffed loudly, as if nearly anyone had more patinece and cililvty inside of them than Em and Edward put together. "A lovely sense of humor...and bright eyes. Eyes that captivated you." She pursed her lips, and I imagined that she would cry, but she did not. She merely possessed this farwary face that lit up lightly, yet still had a trace of a shadow across it. I thought of my own man that possessed bright eyes...

They were hazel, green in contrast to my plain brown ones. I suddenly realized all I really knew of him was the severity he owned for others, an unhealthy adoration he held for me, and handsome, mesmerizing opals that sucked me into a vortex. "We first made love on the banks of my family's estate on the Hamptons. It was so beautiful in the dark out there, and I couldn't help but feel...relieved that I had found the perfect guy for me. The guy that I sought for in every male in high school, but never found. I never thought twice; I never asked myself what I would do if I lost him. I never made a second plan." She took a rather healthy drink of her spirit and daintily wiped the tiny roplets that escaped her bottom lip with the back of her small hand. "For those two years, I just knew he and I would live forever." She rattled on some more stories before I just couldn't help myself any longer.

It was the one question people in mourning hated being inquired, I knew that- but it didn't stop me. "Would you do it all over again?" It blurted from my mouth before I had the chance to close it.

She smiled at me, her perfect white teeth showing from her plump, red lips. "I will relive it for the rest of my life."

And that was about the moment that I began to miss my stupid, fake _fiancé_.


	7. Meddling: Good for the Soul

"Love at first sight." Alice muttered softly to me, her cup of water pressed to her lips. We were all seated at a round table in Twine's Thai Cuisine, where Rose and Emmett were feeding each other off of their own plates. I suggested to Edward that I introduce my cousin to his brother, and he eagerly agreed. It seemed Em was hogging up alot of breathing space at the office with spare time.

_"Bella, my brother is driving me insane." Edward muttered angrily as he yanked at his tie, successfully ripping the satin into shreds. "Always putting his size thirteens on my desk, acting out during meetings, and on a call last night he was too distracted by a dancer's ass that he didn't see a man coming at him. Emmett could have easily knocked him out cold. Instead, i had to kill him!" Edward was sort of... pacing, and it was scaring me. "I don't care that we came in this bussiness together. He will leave my shareholders if he doesn't clean up his act." That was my finace, alwasy worrying and yelling and overreacting. He sat defeated on the edge of our bed and I scooted to sit behind him, swiftly wrappng my arms around his shoulder and torso for an intimate hug._

_I propped my chin on his shoulder bone and looked lazily at the portrait of Cullen Manor in the Country Estates of Illionios. "Maybe he needs a girl to calm him? Keep him on the ground?" I suggested quietly, not looking to stir him up again._

_His breathing was calm and his tone was even again. "Perhaps." I could feel him purse his lips. "Some **molls** sure do know how to calm their boys, don't they?" He teased to which I lighty bit on his shoulder for. He feigned an "oww" and chuckled when I proceeded to nibble at his neck and ear. "Emmett loves and leaves his girls; none have sated his thirst thus far. Gals are commonly used by him."_

_I shrugged against him and wrapped my legs, clad in no stockings- just bare skin, around his own. "My cousin, Rose, she is much the same with men. They are simply things to use and be disposed of." I helped him unbutton his white cotton shirt. "I believe she will do Emmett well. He will certainly get a taste of his own medicine with her, if nothing else. And Rose isn't the type to get hurt, I can assure you." When his shirt was completely off, I began ravaging the sensitive skin on the back of his neck and ran my hands up and down his back. We hadn't gone very far yet. Alice just left to her flat in the city and Edward worked long hours, if not with Cullenciano Enterprise, with his Mafia deals. But when we did touch... oh, that was heaven._

_Edward was a donkey sometimes. When he wasn't so mean and bitter, he was a true sweetheart._

That was a week ago, but as Edward's hand slipped to my thigh, the blush enveloped on my face. We were hot nd heavy that day... Ed was nearly to his boxers before he reluctantly pulled away and went to the shower. "Rose?" I spoke a little louder than neccesary to get her full attention. Her blonde head of hair snapped to me as she pressed a napkin to the smeared scarlet lip stick she wore. "Have you heard from Angie? I've been meaning to meet up with her. Alice would just love a shopping partner like Angela." Angie was our cousin, by marriage. Our Uncle Sam married Angela's mom when Angie was four, and we grew up together as close as any trio of cousins could. Rose was my Uncle Riley's only daughter- all from my mother's side. My dad was an only child, but my mom had two brothers and two sisters. My two aunts, Jessica and Tanya, were the glamorous bunch who hardly visited town and kept little contact with the rest of us. We weren't miss much with them. The last I heard, my Aunt Jessica was working as a showgirl in a Burlesque spot and my Aunt Tanya was charming some fancy aristocrat. Rene looked modest compared to them.

Rose rolled her eyes. "She's with that wiseguy, Dwight." Edward visibly stiffened beside me, but I ignored it. He did that often, when in danger or spooked, and I chose to ignore this one. "He's been real controlling. I don't like it, but what can you do? We have to wait until Jared comes back from the Army until I can give that boy a piece of my mind." Rose wasn't afraid of what Dwight would do to her, but what she would do to him if he touched her. Jared was our Uncle Sam's son from a marriage before Angie's mom, making Jared two years older than Angie.

Alice wrinkled her small button nose. "This Dwight sounds like a real jerk. He would truly hit a woman?" She seemed outraged.

I swallowed a forkful of mashed potatoes before answering. "I never met the man. Rose and Angie are five years older than me, so they run with similar crowds. I'm sure she met him at her Univeristy." I shrugged it off and went to more important topics. Like the details of Esme and Carlisle's vow renewal. Alice didn't give much detail, because blabbermouth Emmett was sitting there. If you told Emmett, the rest of the world knew. I chuckled at the fact that not long ago, I had loathed the Cullencianos with a personal vendetta. Now, I was sitting down eating and introducing my own family to their kind! "Are you feeling okay?" I questioned Edward, who fell silent soon after we began talking about Angela's stupid boy.

He nodded and reassured me with a light squeeze of my knee. I brushed off his indifferent attitude and turned back to the table's conversation. "How about we meet up at Ed's country home this Saturday? Its out of the city and enough room to lodge everyone." Emmett offered haughtily.

"You cannot just barge yourself in his house, Emmie!" Alice reprimanded him quickly. "But that does sound swell...what do you say, brother?" Alice blinked innocently at Edward, who shifted uneasily. I wished then and there that I had a brother to make puppy faces at. The closest thing I had to that was Jared, but he was not _my_ brother. He always had his hands full with Angela and the duty of carrying out the Hale family legacy his own dad carried. Rose's two twin brothers were just a year older than me; Paul and Eric were troublemakers that mostly stayed to themselves and rarely played with me as a child. They bugged the holy hell out of Rose all the way until she left for two years for college. My aunts never had children, but if they did, those kids would have ignored me as well. "Bella? Does that not sound like a super plan?" She smiled like the ball of energy she was.

"Shall we meet six in the evening?" I countered with a bright smile. Wonderful! The house would finally see new visitors. And perhaps Rose and Emmett's attraction would grow? "Invite Thello and Royce, tell them to bring their wives. A dinnerdate sounds delightful." I added gleefully. There was no stopping, i just made more and more plans with Emmett and Alice. I suddenly stopped and shook my head. I was merely _seventeen_, not some middle-aged housewife!

Rose eyed me with a twinkle in her blue opals. "Shall we invite Jasper?" I shrugged, not realizing why she would randomly offer such an option. Jasper was a boy she went to college with, and I met him a few times at social functions. He was a sweet charmer with a down south accent. Nothing majorly alluring about him. But then it suddenly clicked. While on a shopping date with Alice for her Art Gala appearence, she admitted to Rose and I about an attraction to cowboys. Jasper was nothing if not a cowboy; an old-style one, too. He traveled all the way to Chicago from Alabama to attend school, and he rented out a room in a muscian's apartment complex during University. He was an ambition kind of chap from the get-go, definetly. I nodded firmly; since when did I play cupid? Rose meeting Emmett was just a sort of favor for Edward, to get Em settled back down to Earth. Bringing Jasper into the picture... that was a whole other ballpark.

That was meddling. But a _little_ _bit_ of meddling was healthy, wasn't it?


	8. Meeting Jasper

"That Rosa girl, she's something." Emmett chuckled as he cut a white peach into fours with a folded knife in his jean pocket. His curly hair was tamed and short, unlike Edward's. I nodded and ran my sweaty palms over the skirt of my dress, which touched my knees primly. I wore a teal blue one, with my hair in a high ponytail and every strand of hair out of my face. Alice said it made me look like a young girl, accentuated by my prudish black flats. I suppose this wasn't the look of a mafia mans fiancé. I thought i looked like... Bella. He offered me a piece and i took happily, I loved peaches to death. I wanted to grow a whole peach farm of trees, but I doubted he would know what to do with the land he had out here.

When i finished my slice, I twiddled some with the thick ribbon i tied my hair with before looking at up him. The house had a wrap around porch, reinforced wooden railings and pillars to support the new house. I loved the way it felt; mine. "Would you fancy seeing her again?" I inquired suddenly; even if i knew they planned on seeing each other again, with or without my knowledge. Em shrugged and feigned nonchalance as he leaned against a white pillar. My feet didn't quite touch the ground as i swung on the porch swing, feeling a cool breeze run along my body.

"She's an alright gal, why not?" He smirked at me and devoured his last piece of fruit. "Have you decided what to do for the wedding?"

I sent him an odd look. "Why? It's not like you could more less about the dreaded wedding." I pointed out; why did he really want to know?

He lifted his hands up in mock surrender and rolled his eyes. "You're going to be my sister, i just wanted to ask how things were. If you're anything like my mom, all i have to do is say "wedding" and an hour of conversation begins." I mentally teased that no police officer had seen such a sight- Emmett Cullen with his hands in surrender,

**Two Days later-**

"Worlds on fire, encompass me. Shrieking softly, all around me." Alice sang on a low note, her tiny voice overtaking us. The piano under her fingertips melded to her frame, Ali now taking on an aura of a professional singer, not a wounded girl venting her confusion. "And...you...are..." in-between each word, she played a low G note, "here." There was low applause around the sitting room as everyone silently awarded her with newfound gratitude; I was only put down. That was so depressing! That had none of Alice written in it!

"That was pleasant, Alice." Edward tipped his leaning fedora to her, and Emmett slapped her back a few times. "Play more often." He winked to show her he meant it; compliments from Ed were few and far in-between, but he always meant them.

"Yeah, you really were wonderful. So lovely!" I gushed, fingering the diamond themed pearl necklace I wore around my neck. This was considered my engagement party, so Edward thought it only right to flourish me with a Cullenciano family heirloom to have and pass down to the next generation. When I said the Cullencianos came from old money, I meant it! What other family would pass down a quarter of a million dollar heirloom before the wedding? I shivered thinking about what jewelry I would have to wear on my wedding day. I would like an ice sculpture, really.

"Thank you. It's a song I wrote, my own original piece." I nodded sadly, wanting to take those words from her mouth. Where was Jasper? I needed him!

"Bella used to play the piano when she was younger. No good at it." Rosalie shrugged and sipped from her glass of wine. "She would sit at that thing for hours and hours, reading the notes and playing. But everyday she only got worse." She chuckled, and took another sip. I blushed and tried to shrivel away from the crowd of eyes. That was an embarrassing time, where I tried to play any music instrument a lady could play. I was good at none; and forget singing! I was horrible at that, too. "But look how beautiful she is." Rosa smiled, her pale white cheeks glowing in the chandelier light. I looked down at the folds of my charmuse gown and blushed again. "Who needs the piano when you've got a face like that?"

Was she drunk? I sent her glance to try and hush her down, not wanting anyone to overhear how gloating she was about me. Looks didn't matter, and I certainly was not blessed all that much with them. Emmett must have understood, seeing as he wrapped an arm around her waist and walked them off to meet some of his family. I wondered how he introduced her. "Meet my independent lady friend" or "This is Rosalie, my very own blonde bombshell to stare and enjoy"? I mused silently. A gasp from Ali's tight lips brought my attention back to the present. I looked up and caught her attention. "Hello, Miss Swan." I whipped around to meet Jasper; a sweet southern boy that I hoped would charm the pants off of my new best friend. "Congratulations." He nodded his head to me. I noticed he was without his cowboy hat; why the formalities? Unless Rose really talked him up about the whole thing. I looked at his attire; city-slicker all the way! From his penny loafers to his Oxford top, you could have mistaken him from a man at an interview!

"Jasper Whitlock, meet my fiancé Edward." I took Ed's hand as he and Jasper did their greetings. "And this is to be my sister-in-law, Alice Cullenciano." I gestured to a shivering Ali. She stood right next to me, as frigid as a board.

She soon snapped out of it and went forward to shake his hand, but instead he kissed the back of hers. It made her face erupt into a color of sheer embarrassment and retracted her hand hesitantly. "You can call me Ali." She gushed.

Jasper smiled, and it was a crooked, boyish grin that he laid onto unsuspecting ladies. "You can call me whatever you like, sugar." He winked at her and tucked his hands in his pockets. I looked on, like a meddling spectator ready to explode with excitement. _Alice has a crush-hhhhhhhhhhh!_ I was so happy that she was happy. Was she happy? I wondered silently.

Gee, I was doing that a lot, wasn't I?


	9. Underneath It All

**A/N: So people were looking for this story? I feel so honored that it was good enough to be remembered! I love writing this and after I got that motivational private message and review, I knew I had to update as soon as possible.**

**I promise, if get all my usual wonderful reviews; there will be another four page update by Monday. You guys rock : )**

"Edward?" I mused softly, paying more attention to the tall skyscrapers above me than my own feet. That was a dangerous thing when I was in a big crowd- it was the perfect opportunity to spill somebody's drink all over them, or trip over a particularly nasty patch of thin air. His arm was hooked in mine, a folded strip of newspaper tucked under his other one. "Do you really think these skyscrapers can touch the clouds of Heaven?" My own grandmother used to help run JLA, and she was a proud Puritan as ever. I didn't rely on magic or religion to fix the sort of problem America was in now. People like my fiancé did that through substantial business trade and the laundering of money.

"I do not know; would you like to see for yourself?" I whipped my head so fast in his direction that it almost hurt. I had never been in a tall building, and never assumed I would. They were meant for men, and as long as I was invited to speakeasies and any restaurant of my picking, I was content for now.

"Truly?" My eyes were wide with the anticipation to be that high up in this musky, Chicago town.

"Of course. I own the building; you can ride the elevator up and down the fifty floors if you so wish." I never saw him as suave or charismatic as when he told me I could do whatever I wanted. It was like an open invitation to do as I pleased! I held his arm closer to mine as we walked a few more steps and entered his building, Cullenciano Enterprise. I was wearing a two piece suit with a soft, pink tweed material- it really was nice and warm for the oncoming autumn that was soon approaching. Mrs. Cullenciano begged of me to wait until spring to have my wedding, and since I was in no honest rush to be wed, I agreed hastily. There was a chime of "Good morning, Mr. Cullenciano," and "You look swell, Mr. Cullenciano". It was like they couldn't find anything bad to say about him… although as soon as he slipped into his charcoal, pinstriped five piece suit, I didn't have anything negative to say, either.

"Do you pay them to compliment you so?" I goaded smarmily, wanting him to get riled up. I didn't feel comfortable with being lovey-dovey and excited with him. I much more enjoyed the teasing and hatred.

"No, that is all free will, love." I rolled my eyes, but kept my arm around his. I felt safe like that. We rode the elevator high up; I could literally feel the ground beneath my feet slip away as our floor dinged proudly. It was a rejuvenating noise, one of which I felt like I had never heard before. Truth was, my Aunt Jessica lived in Baltimore Hotel and a doorman saw us to the elevator every time and that odd sound would leave the shaft faster than I could catch it with my hands. As soon as we touched the fiftieth floor, he was quick to drag me along with him, right to his office. The floor wasn't busy or filled up, but it was very serene and almost too perfect- it was like no one real worked there. Edward shut the door behind me, took my hand, and faced us towards the window. It was a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked every single part of Chicago- I could see the police station, and probably my parent's house if I looked hard enough. "Welcome to Chicago, Bella."

I smiled, a small blush making its way to my face at the mention of my name. Everything I experienced with Edward was so new, and so different. I met many boys, and most I wish I hadn't. But there wasn't any real experience with the lads that I had acquainted myself with, so there was no figure to compare Edward to. He was his very own specie, anyway. "I've lived here my whole life and I've never seen the city so… alive." I hesitantly let go of his hand and walked closer to the window behind his desk. "It feels like life is real this high up." I bit my lip and turned back to him. "This is what God must feel like when He looks down at us everyday."

Edward stared at me for a few heartbeats. "If by _God_, you mean big shot businessmen whom wish to monopolize everything to their own will, then you're poorly mistaken. _Gods_ don't look over you, they look down at you. There is no such thing as a high power, and if there was, he certainly wouldn't be a man." We seemed to be nose to nose when I turned back around to face him after his revelation.

"We are all entitled to our own opinion, Edward. If you chose to place your beliefs with a bunch of political machines and men full of vice, then so be it. I find it perfectly scrupulous that I lay my faith with a "higher power". What's so wrong with that? At least I have something to look forward to on a bad day. Do you think any of these business tycoons could care about your personal life, when you have no one else around because you've stepped on them on your way up?" I licked my lips, feeling that familiar burn in my lower belly. "God speaks and listens to everyone, and he's never too busy or too good to be a friend."

He nodded. I knew it was just his way of avoiding a long-winded argument, which I was fine with. I had the rest of my life to convert him to Christianity…I shuddered at the thought. Forever… did I really just put us on a timeline? I mentally shook my head and looked out at the sky again, slipping off my silk linen gloves and tucked them tenderly into my new leather clutch. "A million dollar view." I murmured, tipping my beige suede morning top back to clear my vision. My mother always wore hats of French design, and I only knew how to follow in tradition- I loved French designers, French embroidery, French people… France was a beautiful place to be, and the language was just so romantic! I felt Edward's arms wrap around my waist and his chin rested on my shoulder.

"Perhaps I need to buy a building for you? The penthouse?" I laughed heartily.

"I already told you! I don't want to live this _into_ the city. I want to stay on the countryside, where I can grow some of my own fruit and own rambunctious animals. But I don't mind too much the alive feeling I get when I walk with a large crowd on the sidewalk. It's like we all have this morphed energy by just being alive and walking in the same direction!" It was his turn to chuckle.

"You favor power then?" His soft lips kissed the dip between my neck and shoulder, a secret soft spot of mine. "It is not a wonder we were destined to marry." There was a load of sarcasm dripping from every word as he spoke, and it made me want to shrivel away in a dark corner. "By the way, it is not "morphed energy" that you feel when you walk with a big crowd "in the same direction". It's the way an Emperor feels when he looks around at his servants and workers- its power."

**One Week Later**-

The new vinyl record played smoothly on the player as I fiddled with one end of the new, ecru satin tapestry that just came in mail that morning. "So?" Rosalie inquired from a few feet away. I looked away from the bay window in the main sitting room to send her a puzzled look. Rose just loved to pop questions out of no where in particular and expected you to know where she was going with it. "Have you bought a car yet? Those Fords are a hot item on the market as of late."

I shrugged, going to back to my much more important work. "I don't know, Rosa." I stuck a thin pin into one side and attached the second layer to the instrument. "Cars aren't a priority right now." Rosa thought that if a woman owned a car to herself, she was an independent woman of suffrage. Well, I had a newsflash for here- it wasn't! Owning a car just meant you had to walk less and more friends would ask to have you take them around town! Even if I had Edward buy another car (just for me), I wouldn't be driving anyway. He had hired drivers that wanted to take me everywhere.

Her evil scoff made me twitch visibly. "Oh, but _daintily_ trying to fix a perfectly fine curtain is a priority? Have some pride, Bella! Have some independence!"

I sent her a sharp look. "There's no need for that awful, patronizing voice of yours. And second, I am not daintily doing anything. I am just poised and naturally soft-natured, unlike you!" I huffed, standing atop the stepping stool and attaching the cloth to the side of the window that I had been contemplating for half an hour. "It is _not_ a curtain, it's a tapestry. Have some pride, Rosalie! Have some lessons in history, Rosalie!" I could have pat myself on the back had I not slipped while I climbed down the only two steps to the height inducer. I fell fast, way before either of us had the time to stop my flailing body. I grabbed for something in the air, but found nothing and successfully landed on my bum. The hardwood floors had never been so uninviting.

Rosa approached me slowly, her high-heeled steps carefully made as that of a cougar on a witch-hunt. I was too shell-shocked and sore to stand up on my own, so when she got to me I sighed in relief. "Yes, real poised and soft-natured." My blond bombshell of a cousin laughed and walked away, leaving me to get up by myself and dust off my behind, my long polka-dotted skirt swaying with my movements. Rosalie usually wore more polka dots and striped, because she was so tall and super firm, while I was short and flabby where it had to be- I believed legs needed meat and bone needed some warmth. "Good thing you're so tiny, else you would have had a higher fall." She was still chuckling as she walked into my kitchen, scoping out the scene before her. "What, I don't believe it! There is no tapestry in here! Seems Edward isn't keeping you busy enough." She smirked, always having to get the last word.

I allowed her what she thought would be a victory! Fighting with that woman got no one anywhere, so I wasn't going to test her limits and try to antagonize her as she did me. So what, she didn't understand the importance of hanging tapestries, and so what if she didn't believe in holy matrimony like I did. I was constantly surrounded by sharks in such a world, I got used to it. I knew she loved me, underneath it all.


	10. Blanc & Black

**A/N: I am LOVING LOVING LOVING these reviews, alerts, and favorites. You guys rock! All those wonderful comments (and the other critically constructive ones) has pushed me to update. Also, I put a lot of Edward/Bella intimacy, because frankly this story needed some. **

**I wanted to begin with a little but of background and fellow characters before them just plain ol' jumping into bed. And this issssssssss the Forties we're talking about!**

**Yep, somewhere in chapter three I said it was the Twenties. Changing that fact right now. It's the Forties now, after World War II. Wedding time in three chapters! Count them down : ). **

_Bella POV-_

He was dangerous, I knew that. Our relationship was taboo, because even if I was forced into this by two careless parents, I found that I was enjoying my way. Edward sat across from me at the long, cedar wood table I had brought in from New York last week. He hardly noted the new changes done to the country home, but I knew he noticed everything. His eyes, those pensive green-to-brown opals, flicked over everything in his way; sometimes, they had a way of looking right through you, deciding what of you actually mattered. Sometimes I assumed his eyes cared not for anything of mine. I cleared my throat to clear my mind of those scattered thoughts. "You look divine tonight, Isabella." Edward spoke from across the room, but his voice seemed to be right there against my ear.

I blushed, unfolded my napkin from my lap and made a flurry of it, as I was taught to do instead of fidgeting. Under a fine man's gaze, a lady had to be prepared to not make a fool of herself. Which I had already done numerous of times in front of him. "Thank you, Edward." I sent him a full-lipped smile, not caring how girlish it made me feel. The quarter sized pearls on my ears, along with the under curled style of my shoulder length brown hair overdid the evening… but then again, in the world of the Cullencianos, there was no such thing as _overdone_. Their houses had to be big, their cars had to be of expensive making, and their clothes had to be loud and attention-grabbing. The silk gown of navy blue I wore was picked out by Alice herself, whom promised this dress would win Edward over in any quarrel we could ever have. The empire waist made sitting down as uncomfortable as visiting the powder room in the company of a man, but the sweetheart cut that showed just enough to keep Edward's attention at the hemline (so wateringly desperate to somehow see more) and that was glory. To know I could keep a man's eye… oh, that was prideful.

But I remembered, pride was a sin in God's eye. Everything about Edward sin, so I knew I would not be able to avoid the limbo much longer. The more time I shared with him, the more in limbo I would forever be. "This Quail is delicious, also; I appreciate your taste for tonight's supper." I found that I most loved his accent- among other wonderful attributes he possessed. "Did I ever tell you my Godfather was the first to take me hunting for game?" I shook my head, looking up at him for to go on. "My godfather lives in Sicily, where my father is from. My mom is from central Italy, a small town close to Rome." Why was he telling me all this? The last time he spilled his guts, I got was guilted into telling Alice her fiancé was dead! "My godfather owned a summer home in Oxford, France; he lost in wife to the Spanish Influenza a few years before I was born. I was always told she was as soft as a willow's breeze, but as sharp as a nail upon a board- I was selfish in the way that I was near glad she was dead. It meant I would never share my Uncle Stefano, ever." He looked down at his plate, than up at me. "Would your God see that as an unforgivable sin?"

I coughed abruptly, never having felt an actual intense moment before then. "No." I said at last, praying that He could hear me send a prayer for my future husband, that this was the worst he had ever done in his life- and ever would do. "God Almighty, he shall forgive every sin, as long as you ask his permission in your dying moment."

"And if I were to die abruptly? Would he forgive me, even if I hadn't shouted a plea before I croaked?" It made me nervous to think of Edward as dead. He became my world, and my everything so quickly- it was as if I knew of no other thing than him. Edward was my father, my guardian, my protector, and my friend. If death became him… well, I wouldn't know what do in existence.

I clutched my chest. "If forgiveness and acceptance is in your heart, it will be in His." I swallowed hard and shoved another piece of meat in my mouth. I chewed softly and looked back up at him. "Tell me more about your godfather?"

Edward sat back in his chair and sipped lazily from his Burgundy. "Uncle Stefano is a wise businessman, but my father never allowed me to listen too much of his ventures. My papa always said that Uncle Stefano's morale and heart was lacking, and it wasn't until I grew more mature and older that I understood him. "Stefano believes in two things- money and laughter. Love, faith, and the long-run are never on his mind. He had no wife to give his love to, no God to lay his faith in, and no real reason to think of the long-run. Stefano and my papa began at the bottom of the food chain together in Sicily. They worked their way up, created their own businesses, and digressed."

I eyed him curiously, wondering how much he would let me get away with. "By the "food chain", you mean mafia?"

Edward nodded, finishing his glass at once. "Yes, Isabella, that is what I meant. My papa is focused on the aspects that my godfather is not, and so they never crossed paths of rivalry. They were capable of maintaining a friendship that had lasted decades. I suppose I could have met a friend had I started at the bottom like my father. When you're born at the top and have spent years looking down, every face becomes the same. Every voice begins to sound alike, and soon you are not able to tell a liar a part from a lover. You learn to trust no one, and you're careful as to whom you speak to. Especially carefully around the ones who call you _friend_." The spite that came from his voice sent my scattered mind into overdrive as I prayed to my Father again, this time asking him to forgive Edward for his ignorance of love and kindness. I begged God to overlook Edward's black heart this time.

"But then, I saw you. Your father's Inaugural ball at Carnegie Piazza; you were so frail, so untouchable in your soft, midnight blue gown- just as you are right now, in front of me." My cheeks turned beet red, and I had no fancy flutter of cotton napkin to deter the shock and certain embarrassment of his comment. That was about four years ago, when I first came to Chicago with my dad. I hadn't known his name, or his family's reputation by then. "There was a moment where you eating your smoked salmon, and I picking at my bland meal, when you looked up and caught my eyes staring at you." I flushed; why didn't I remember that? People stared at me sometimes- but mostly because they couldn't believe I hadn't received my mother's looks, and my father's stern attitude. Most men never even gave me a second glance. So why couldn't I remember the most beautiful man staring at me? "Your wonderful, brown doe eyes gave me two seconds of pure euphoria. You looked away, and I knew you hadn't actually made eye contact with me, else you have blushed a color too bright for pink." I chuckled at his observation.

"You were fourteen, and I was almost twenty. The prime ages of a man and a woman to marry, yes, but for some inexplicable reason I wanted to watch you blossom- because I knew you weren't quite developed yet, even if you looked more beautiful than Athena, herself." I shook my head, keeping eye contact with the witty, handsome man before me. This was beginning to be too fairy tale for me. This couldn't be anything near reality! "I was in attendance to every ballet performance, to every poetry recital you were part of, and to your graduation few months ago." I gasped at the revelation he made. Who did he think he was? That was my life he was trying to wedge himself in! He had the bravery to murder and distribute, but not the courage to speak to me? "There was an addictive part of you that I couldn't let go of."

"You were… obsessed." I stated shakily, holding my wineglass by the stem and staring down at the contents to avert my attention. "Sweetly obsessed." I forced a chuckle from my mouth.

"But an obsession, no matter how sweet, is never right. And so, I wanted to apologize if you felt any unease by the hands of my evil inner-monster. I only wanted to be honest with you." He cleared his throat and sat up in his seat once more.

I smiled, tilting my head at a weird angle. "I appreciate your approach to honesty. But, please, if you wish to stare or follow me from here on, allow me to be aware of it? I don't mind your presence as much as I do your proxy." I winked playfully, causing a great smirk to envelope his face. "I have learned to, in this life, accept what comes to me. It allows for an easier, hatred-less way of living."

He stared down at me for a long moment, probably attempting to see what was truth and what was lie in my words. I believed everything I said to him; it was eerie that he followed and was present through many different times in my life, but it was perhaps better than being with a complete stranger. At least we had some common ground! But that was voided by the calm exterior he exerted when he rose and beckoned me with one hand. "Come. I want to show you something." I stood and followed him as he pleased, my hand somehow finding his as he led me down familiar hallways to our destination. So far, I had seen everything. The gardens, the kitchens, his Master bedroom, the library, and even the second and third Crystal ballrooms on the upper floors. But as we made a quick left to the East wing, I suddenly became lost.

I never ventured past the library on the East Wing, mostly because the creaky steps frightened me more than I would ever admit. _Once, while I left the library one late evening, I felt a pair of eyes following my every move as I walked past a portrait of Edward and a business associate, Don Humphrey. I stilled in my voyage and looked around; Edward was gone on a month trip to London for business, and I was left to myself with the house help and Alice in a spare bedroom on the second floor. I shook my head; since when was I a believer of thing that bump in the night? Or was it some lucid intruder that somehow got past the Estate's gates and around the clock security? Neither of those possibilities could ever be. So I plucked my rosary from my dress' pockets and wound tightly in my hand. "Our Father." I closed my eyes and chanted, willing what ever ugly feeling I owned to release it of me. After a quiet moment, I felt the eerie sensation dissipate, wherein I ran all the way back to my rooms and slammed the doors shut._

We passed the library's doors and went much further than the powder room and entrance to the Second Crystal Ballroom. "Where are we going?" I inquired suddenly, a clear shudder in my voice. Our housekeeper made sure the whole house stayed warm in winters like this; Mrs. Doytore was a tight-lipped worker that kept the rest of the house in order when I wasn't there. She made sure the cooks were well and healthy, the sweepers kept the chimneys clean and safe to use, and hounded the gardeners to stay on their jobs. She was the kind of household person I knew I would never become. Edward avoided my question and kept walking, as if he had taken this path a million times before. He wasn't usually a man of mystery- most of the time, he enjoyed keeping things bland. Who was this Zorro, so suddenly? Finally, we approached a wooden door and proceeded through it not skipping a beat.

He turned on the electricity in the room, allowing light to flood the nearly empty room. I looked around, letting go of his hand and reaching out to the touch the grand piano of black and blanc, the colors that went perfectly together. I then moved to the Victorian-styled loveseat, curved delicately for two people only- allowing the third wheel the knowledge of being ousted. It like no fashionable material I knew of lately; my fingers glided along the surface, which was smooth for the most part until the soothing patterns of Egyptian threading ran along my finger pads, massaging the sensitive receptors there. "The loveseat was my great-grandmothers when she and Grandfather Cullenciano lived here. I have never found the energy or wanton to get rid of it. If it is displeasing, you are more than welcome to-"

He must have taken my bewildered look of musing for a displeasured scowl of dissatisfaction. "No." I spun on my heel and looked at him. "I believe it gives the room… color." The walls were cleanly blanc, not eggshell or milk white. There was no dust collected, so every corner was without shadow and the four corners of pillared wall were as nude and carefree as a newborn entering the world. This room, and its two eldest occupants, survived both World Wars and three generations of families. This sofa and piano deserved to be here, forever. I was caught in my musings that I didn't give the world around me notice until my ears perked at the sound of a piano string being played. I gave the piano and its master my attention, settling on the couch softly, all the while staring at Edward's back- watching how the tiny breeze that infiltrated the old window's seal and rushed past his thick neck, which was sprouting from his button-up, since the first few buttons were undone.

He played for a few more minutes before beckoning me to sit with him. Like a lost puppy, I came with my tail wagging hopefully. I sat still, his body heat radiating like a sauna from a hot spring. I feared that if I made one un-choreographed movement we would both topple over the bench and fall several stories down. Edward caught me by my waist and sat me in between his legs, like a little girl in a father's teaching embrace. My whole body flushed excitedly; it was moments like these that my libido begged for far more than I could handle. His head swiveled around mine, his lips pressing softly against my temple as his hands covered mine. Each of his fingers manipulated mine, and together we made sweet music, that on my own, I could have never made otherwise. We were playing "Moonlight Sonata", I vaguely became aware. The fact that I was actually semi-playing a solid song was forgotten as soon as his lips found wonderful spots on my throat. "Edward." I shuddered, a shaky tone taking my voice over.

He kept playing. As he kissed lower, just above my gown's neckline, I felt his impeccably jelled hair shag down and move against my dress and he devoured my chest. A sigh of utter bliss escaped much louder than I intended, and he ceased playing at once. He twisted my body and slammed my bottom down on the keys, emitting a few thunderous notes. "You are my sweet obsession, Isabella Cullenciano."

Half-frightened, half-aroused I stared down at him in wonder. I was so confused; all I was capable of doing was nodding and looking doe-eyed. What was I supposed to say to something like that? And he completely dropped my birth name, replacing it with his own. Our marriage and sharing of nuptials was fast approaching. _Spring is my deadline_. Before that time, I had to somehow fall in love with a monster that would not stop his terror onto other people until he was six feet under. Edward crushed his lips against my own, creating a shaking of my hands and body as I wound my arms around his neck and softly tugged at the hair at the nape of his neck. Sure I could be naïve and enjoy moments like these, pretending there wasn't a creepy Mafia leader underneath it all. But I knew, once this moment of ultra-Romanticism was over, I would have to look the real Edward Antonio Cullenciano dead in the eye. "Shall you promise me eternal happiness in the marriage?"

I broke away from his kiss and looked upon him, hoping to get the answer I wanted. "If you are speaking of _love_, then no, Isabella-" He grew dark with his words.

"No." I shook my head. "I know that love is unquestionable in our situation. But I mean happiness… happiness everyday of my cherished life with you." I held my hands in a clasp behind his head, and his hands settled on the thick waist of my dress.

"Of course, Bella." He planted a chaste kiss on my lips again. "We will be married tomorrow, if you so wish to understand how happy I am capable of making you."

I shook my head, a childish grin on my face. "I promised your mother I would wait until the spring. Esme would have my head if I didn't keep my promise." I sighed, wondering what it would be like to have never met Edward and never known any of these people. "I want to be happily married, Edward. I am tired of hating you." I admitted lowly. I needed to stop being naïve, to stop being negative, to stop being a selfish girl. I needed to grow up and truly accept my situation.

Edward nodded solemnly, his boyish smile suddenly gone. "I think it is time you spoke with Charles and Rene."

I was too shocked to speak, or to even faint in his arms. I could only blankly stare in his face.


	11. Let It Fall Like Rain

**A/N: ARTIST OF THE WEEK-**

_**Keith Urban- **_

**The song I used this month is "Tonight I Wanna Cry". Beautiful song, look it up!**

**Please review, ladies and gents!**

"He is the best thing we could have ever done for you, Bella." I tapped my fingers frustratingly against the cedar wood of the stand I sat at. Who did Rene think she was? Some sort of _savior_, who was only looking out for my best interests? No, she wasn't! She was a selfish bitch! "Your dad was in a tight spot, and we needed to leave immediately. Your dad didn't want to drag you through all of this. We wanted you to live a happy, calm life." There was a deflated sigh on the other line. Oh, yeah, right! Her stupid reasoning was making no sense to me. I had a well-connected Godfather back in Washington, and my grandparents in Arizona were the epitome of peaceful. Why dump me off on an obsessed, moody _Mafioso_ man?

Not that I didn't love Edward- I really did. He was sweet and brutally considerate to all of my needs and requests. But still… had I the choice to never in the position I was in now, I might have had a different life. A less complicated, easier sort of life for myself. "You and dad left me, while you sought refuge on a whole nother continent, and never thought once to call or write me! You bartered me off to a man that was near a stranger, and you couldn't have cared less about what might have happened to me!" I said angrily, shooting up in a flash of anger. I loved my parents, most of the time. They were mostly there for me when I needed them. My father paid for my schooling and expensive art classes, and my mother pushed me to go out into society and meet new people- like my own cousin, Rosalie.

But that didn't make up for leaving me high and dry. All of the little stuff they did for me could never make me overlook their abandonment! Rene cleared her throat angrily. Oh, _she_ was mad? She had no right at all to be! "Your father has known Carlisle and the Cullencianos for a very long time, Bella. Those kinds of people were the very best candidates to take care of you. All we considered was your safety and comfort- we had no other intentions, Isabella. No hidden agenda, just the want of our daughter's life. That's all." Her voice got heavy all of a sudden, like she was forcing back tears.

My mother cried whenever she pleased. She didn't force herself to not cry, so why now? "It is a good thing Edward is a right gentleman. Else I might have further hated the ground you walk on." I said spitefully into the phone, holding the platinum receiver to my ear. "And I promise that my hatred only grows!" With that, I hung up. My hands shook wildly as I ran a hand through my prepped hair. Who was I without my Chief of Police father and wildly-sane mother? I was a grown woman, with sexual desires and a long-time-coming marriage on the horizon. My eyeliner ran stealthily down my high cheekbones; blue tears that sang to me a sordid lullaby hugged my nose, and then kept traveling down my chin. I felt like I had just pulled the trigger- I felt like I had built a ten foot tall wall of pure concrete. I never wanted to speak to them. I never wanted to see them again!

An awful part of me didn't even want them to happy. Even if I was just that on my time. "Bella? I've brought the spice cake I made last night!" Alice called from downstairs, her small voice wavering lightly on a high note. At least she was in good spirits. How long had I seen her down and out, just how I was right now? I doubted she would travel upstairs, but the little sprite jumped up from the last step and right into the hallway. I made no hasty movements to dry my eyes or fix my make up. I didn't care.

Alice could see me like this. I didn't care anymore! "Oh, Bella!" She whispered softly, striding dutifully to me and bent down to my level. "What did he do? What did he say to you to make you look so blue?" Her caring blue eyes roamed over my face and body, looking for any scars or marks. I wanted to chuckle at her eager protectiveness, but my kindred spirit prevented me from doing so. I jut shook my head, not ready to explain everything. "Your parents?" She popped quietly, knowing exactly what my problem was. Her sharp eyes went to the phone and then went back to me. "Why did he let you call _them_?" She ventured more to herself than me with a shake of her small head. What was that supposed to mean?

Edward had no control over me, this was America! I was not a belonging. I was not an item on sale. I was a woman, a human being! "I called them because I felt like needed to. It was just… disappointing."

She smirked, placing her cool hands on top of my heated ones. "You expected them to say they had a gun pointed at their head the whole time? That could at least make you feel like they had _absolutely_ no choice at all but to abandon you." I nodded, that was exactly what I had been thinking! "But please, Bella, remember that they kinda did do what was best. In the sticky situation they were in, at least. I mean, seriously, what kind of _dirty_ cop doesn't have an escape plan?" Alice rolled her eyes comically.

"What?" I replied quickly. My dad was a… _dirty_ cop? After everything about "justice" and "doing the right thing" he preached to me my whole life, he was a double-crosser to the right way of living?

"Edward…hasn't…?" Her face morphed into an ugly grimace. "Look, Bella, maybe its best if you wait for him to explain it. I'm not that good at this whole "Al Capone" thing, and im not sure if I even have the whole story." I shook my head, my eyes watering up all over again. Alice huffed. "Bella, really? You want to hear my modified version? It isn't just some gossip story on the radio. This is your life, and all of the decisions that were mad to alter your present. Do you really wanna hear a version that may not be right?" I nodded eagerly, leaning on my toes.

"Please, Alice. I would never keep information from you." I squeezed her hands in my own. For good measure, I was going to add "_I dropped the atom bomb about Rey to you, now it's your turn to be the barer of bad news_", but I didn't have the guts. It wouldn't do if we were both were crying messes when Edward got home!

"Okay, well all I was told was that Charles Swan was being watched too closely for his liking by these _guys_." She shrugged in nonchalance. "I guess he wasn't on his toes about business he and some guys helped run; underground stuff like drugs and grand theft, if I'm not mistaken. Of course, it was nothing to the degree of what my father and brothers do… but it was just as bad. Just as dangerous, too." She sighed, obviously feeling squeamish about even talking about it. "My dad heard around that there was a hefty bounty on your head, and when he told Edward, it was history from there." A girlish smile played on her thin lips. "I remember how ballistic he went. Your dad was avoiding a meeting between our two families- but that was _way_ before he knew about your life being in danger." She clarified assertively. "They agreed that marriage and the Cullenciano name would be well enough to push off all of the competition. No one's going to mess with you now, Bella. Edward and my dad will make sire that nothing bad will happen. I promise."

I swallowed hard. So, this was _his_ entire fault! He was the one that forever changed the odds of having a care-free life I would have loved to live. Charlie ruined everything for me.

"I know you've lost and sacrificed a lot, Bella. But look what you have now." I looked around the house, wondering when everything got so huge. Everything suddenly had a price tag, and I was reminded of the hallow emptiness I first put to this home when I walked in. The house was too big, that carpet cost too much! Alice rushed me, her arms folding around my arms and met at my back. "You have a family now."

I shut my eyes tightly, allowing my arms and hands to go limp. That word hurt. _Family_.

Those kinds of people only ever hurt you.

"_**I'm just drunk enough to let go of my pain**_

_**To hell with my pride, let it fall down like rain**_

_**From my eyes,**_

_**Because tonight I wanna cry."**_


	12. I Fall To Pieces

**A/N: **

**ARTIST OF THE WEEK-**

**PATSY CLINE.**

**The song I vibed to while writing this is "I Fall To Pieces". Beautiful song about broken hearts!**

**Merry Christmas to all!**

I believed in God and everything he stood for, and proof of his existence in my life was more than abundant. But it was times like these, in situations like my own… he was just too far away and out of my reach to see the bad things I was doing. I knew it was vice to drink alcohol, unless it was his very blood of wine, but the pale brown whiskey (aged to one hundred years) capped in a crystal bottle, was far too inviting to just pass up. Where was my savior now, as I slumped against a soft couch, my eyes bleary and a crooked step to my walk? I titled my head back and took another drink, hating the nauseous feeling in the beginning and the burning feeling at the end. It tasted like garbage and an eternity in hell; but it helped freeze the red hot burning of my problems.

I put on a smooth vinyl record, a top blues singer of my time. She only sang about betrayal and heartbreak… now my own predicament. I hummed softly to the notes I pretended to know, swaying fruitlessly in my fitted knee-length dress of black saffron- small ruffles hugged the hemline of my collared garment, which was less than quarter-sleeved. The dark red belt defined the curve of my waist and my high heeled shoes of scarlet didn't help to keep my demuirty, but it didn't matter. I loved my dresses. I loved my shoes. I loved my belts. "I love you all!" I slurred to the furniture around me. They never hurt me, they only helped me!

My tongue felt thick to even my own lips. What was I doing? I couldn't recognize the sloppy, disorientated girl staring back at me for them sitting room's large vanity. I felt at my brown hair- the pins kept the two inwardly swirled curls attached to both sides of my head, and the tucked chignon kept the ends of my hair hidden away. I always spent so much time bringing myself together. But when I drank whiskey and allowed folly tears to ruin my dark makeup… it all seemed worthless! I was a mess. I was no use- just wasted effort.

I could still feel my mother running her fingers through my tangled locks, and I could see my father hanging our stockings above the mantle of the crackling fireplace. I cried harder as I realized this would be my very first Christmas alone. Alice left a few hours ago on some errand in the city, and Edward wouldn't home until far past dark. He had a speakeasy to visit- something about some bad business or unbalanced numbers in sales, I didn't really remember. Whatever errand he was on, I was thankful for. I didn't want him to see me like this because I was pathetic and weak. For once, I wanted to be alone amidst my destruction of scruples. Why were my parents so weak? Why did my all-fearing father run scared, with his tail between his legs from men he had every right to lock up and throw away the key?

I was given to the highest bidder. What would have become of me, had they abandoned me all alone? "They didn't love me." I murmured softly, finally realizing the truth I was dodging. Charlie would have rather raised a boy that looked just like him, and my mother understood that I would never be capable of being the golden child daughter she wanted me to be. I was just this kid they were dumped on. "How could you let that happen?" I asked God but looked down at the ground. He stood for everything great and right and yet he allowed a little girl be brought up by two crooked parents, and then transitioned to a corrupt family that she would have to call her own? There was nothing great or right about that!

"God isn't so almighty after all, is he?" I froze in my dwelling state at the sound of his voice. Edward was here at the wrong moment, in the wrong situation. I didn't want him here.

I shut my eyes against the migraine beginning in my head. "Please just let me be. Leave me alone tonight." I was tired, lonely, and drunk. I didn't need him there to remind me of all the opportunities I was missing. It was hard to play dutiful housewife when we weren't even married yet. I didn't want kids, or a ring, or an overbearing husband. I didn't want any of this! I whipped around and faced him. "I hate you!" I screamed, gripping the square bottle in my hand tightly. He was leaning against the table with the record player, looking suave and oh so put together. he didn't deserve to look at me like that- like he knew everything and I wouldn't understand a lick of it even if it was spoon-fed to me! "I hate you, Edward! I hate this house that confines me like a breath-constricting suit, and I hate your family because they seem to love me for no good reason at all!" I whimpered and looked away. I hated… everyone. I hated everything, even if I was loved sweetly the entire time. "I hate this life you've given me." Edward's face was stoic as he stayed completely still. He didn't reach for the bottle in my hands as I took another drink, just let me crash into the freedom of delirium. How did he keep that emotionless face all of the time? I wasn't aware of the dirty look I was sending him until he tipped his chin up at me in a battle cry that I would have had to be deaf to not hear. My feet stumbled slightly as I walked forward, fingering my way across furniture to him in a half-hearted attempt to rid myself of clumsiness. "I hate you!"

No one liked to feel this way, and especially me. I didn't recognize myself as a hateful and angry person. "You think that you're the only one?" His nonchalant response rattled my nerves. Why wasn't he affected one little bit by my awful words? Edward needed to feel something, he needed to feel the way I felt!

"Ha- you love this lifestyle! You were born a killer and you'll die a killer! It's your only talent, and just one of your many curses." I hissed angrily, so near to his flawless face. Why was he so beautiful? Why was he so perfect? "Esme taught you nothing in your childhood but regret, and Carlisle only sought to teach you the pleasure of playing one woman for another! Emmett is as insensitive as they come, with his hot commodity attitude and prideful stride. Poor Alice…" I shook my head with a bitter chuckle. "You couldn't even tell her you got her love killed! She doesn't belong to the Cullenciano, obviously. I will never take your name." I screeched his face, pushing at his chest roughly. Oh, I just hated his guts!

"You're only hurting yourself." He muttered bitterly, pushing me away easily. I stumbled backwards a little, but kept my balance just in time as I clutched onto the mantle. "Give me this!" And he snatched the bottle from my loose grasp, emitting a low growl of protest from my lips. "You think that this is the worst life you could have had? You believe that I am the worst kind of monster you could have been stuck with?" I swallowed softly as he grabbed my arm by my elbow. "I have allowed you to keep your virginity, I have given you the liberty of a white wedding, done together with a patience groom and supportive family that you seem to hate even if there is no other group of people lining up to keep you company!"

"I don't hate them, I only hate you!" I spat quickly; I loved Alice and Esme, I truly did. Emmett was a pompous ass, but he did care for me. And Carlisle… well, I didn't him on a personal level enough to judge.

His condescending chuckle brought fresh moisture to my eyes. "You know nothing of real hate, little girl. How about I treat you like the woman you think you are." Before I could ask him just what he meant, he shoved my body against the wall and pressed his body along mine. I gasped at the contact, with his mouth working against my own. But soon, his hands traveled to places I didn't want his hands to be- one over my breast and the other crinkling the starch shirt's hemline to rise it above my hip.

"No!" I slapped his chest away, but he wouldn't budge. I bit down on his lip, but it only further stimulated his arousal, as it was pressing against my leg. Soon, his sticky fingers traveled to the back of my dress and began ripping the buttons, so my back was almost fully exposed. My stockings were good as trash, as he ripped lines onto both sides. When he pulled away to level an even glare at me, my fist was already formed and ready for him. The ricocheting blow traveled around the room many times before it actually touched us. I never expected him to hit me back until he did. He slapped the stars out of me, as I trampled to the floor in my blinded haze and already tampered stupor. It was an open-handed slap, not as hard as the jab I sent him, but the six foot force behind it made a throbbing pain begin. How dare he hit me!

I grew up with the belief that a real man would never hit a woman, no matter the circumstance. it was only right. "Now you have a valid enough reason to hate me." And he walked out of the room with the bottle in his hand, only leaving behind the slamming door in his wake. I cried for a moment longer before slowly crawling my way to a standing position and making my way to my own room. He was never overly aggressive, let alone an angry man with a hot temper. I would admit that I was in the wrong for drinking a little too much and saying mean things, but the way he was touching me and then the slap… I promised myself I would never forgive him for any of it.

I was living with a monster. A real monster in the flesh.


	13. Know The Maker's Land

**A/N: Gosh, you guys are spoiling me with reviews. I love it.**

**ARTIST OF THE WEEK:**

**Mumford & Sons**

**The song I used towards the end is called "The Cave". Go check it out! **

I didn't eat dinner with him for a week. Every meal, every telegram, every phone call was taken in my own room and I made sure that I never ventured out when he was present in the house. It was fear and anger mixed deliciously together that kept me away from Edward, but I suppose that harlot they call Fate wanted it that way and no other. He had to be doing his own share of avoiding, as I never ran into him in the evenings when I traveled from the vast library to the main parlor- where he usually was from late afternoon until the evening. That was where his business phone was, as well as his typewriter (which I use to help him with, but no longer). It was times like these that I often thought about my own parents.

"_You think of me blind, deaf, and dumb?" My mother screeched on the top of her lungs, sending the entire house into disarray. I shut my eyes, praying that someone would just barge in the door and save me from the heat of the moment. Maybe one of my traveling aunts- perhaps my father's work friends would come by on a surprise case and break up the fight. But no one came, and they only got louder. "Why, Charlie? Is it because she's young? Is it because you don't love me anymore?" Our one story house revolved around the hill that it sat on. Our surrounding neighbors were friendly and just peachy- but everyone understood that there was something more in the Swan household. People heard the yelling and knew when Charlie took off late at night. _

"_I don't feel like doing this right now, Rene. You're my wife, and if you acted a little more like it then you wouldn't feel so left out of my rather social lifestyle!" My dad was thirty-seven, my mother being five years younger than him; he wasn't supposed to be social. He had a twelve year old daughter to think about. By this time, he had already been out of jail long enough to regain his career and place in Chicago's elite squad. "And if you really want to know, yes- yes, Rene, you cant even walk in your shoes right like someone Tara's age can. You've gained weight around your middle, and so you stopped wearing that blue dress I used to love so much. Tara is none of your business anyway."_

_I heard something hit the wall, and the echoing sound of glass shattering hit the floor like a lead footstep. "None of my business! That little trollop is ruining my life- first my marriage, and now my image! Do you understand just what I have done for this family? And here you are, frolicking with any little skinny-legged broad walking by! Where was this little Tara when you were in State Penitentiary? Was she the one sneaking you baguettes and clean needles?" Rene's tone was an all-time high. "No, she wasn't there! No one but me was there for your no-good, lying, cheating poor-excuse-for-a-man self! Ho dare you complain about the minor changes in my appearance. At least I can maintain sexuality." At twelve, I misunderstood just what she meant by this. I assumed she was talking about her good looks, as my mother was very beautiful for her age. _

_But the next thing that happened totally confused me. "You couldn't pay another man to sleep with you, you pathetic harlot!" The sound of his tongue and mouth gathering saliva and the suddenly spitting it carried over to my room across the hall. I clutched my teddy bear and tucked my head under the blanket, trying to no avail to block oout their voices._

"_Get out! Get out of here- get out now!" My mother screamed like a banshee, and loud thuds were heard all around. "Go to that girl you were fucking in the restroom! I hope she realizes how ill you are in bed, and you realize that you __**will **__have to pay me for any services I ever perform. Scum!" There bedroom door flew open, and out stepped two angry people. I could hear everything more clearly now. "That's all you are. Scum! My father was right- you were nothing but a loser from the beginning! A dirty cop, with more years than he could ever live to spend in prison- not so tough when you're sharing a cell with someone worse than yourself, right?"_

_It was a sound that I'll never forget- it's the calm before the break of porcelain, it's the moment right after the waves of the ocean lap onto shore, and it's the foul smell of a dog who's had one too many owners in his lifetime. Charlie slapped Rene right across her face, cracking her bottom lip and breaking the skin right above her upper lip- of course, I hadn't seen that until the next day. "Learn how to talk to a man. When I come back, I expect this filthy house to be cleaned and your mouth to stay shut." a few moments later, the sound of his Model T could be heard pulling away from the house, at top speed and loud enough to wake the next two neighborhoods._

Now that was a little bit older, I understood just how wrong that situation was. He was so pig-headed, and my mother was so allowing. But now I was no better, living with a man that slapped me against my soft cheek. A small bruise took the place of his hand imprint, and I refused to let anyone see me when I had another's marking on my ivory skin. I shouldn't have said all of those things. I shouldn't have put that record on. I shouldn't have drank anything. A series of soft knocks sounded at the door, but I stayed mute. If it was Alice, she would understand that I wanted to left alone. If it was Rosa… well, even I knew she was too busy these days to stop by just for a chat. And she didn't know how to knock on doors- she merely barged in on things. The mahogany door creaked open ever so slightly, and the mystery of whom would come into my door unwelcome was killing me. My eyes were red, my face was blotchy with tears from that morning, and I was still in a night dress though it was already late afternoon. I was in no state for visitors of any sort.

The eldest Cullenciano brother filled his way through the door and shut it softly behind him. Once I saw the crazy bronze hair and rolled up sleeves to his elbows, I looked away and pulled my duvet up around my waist. didn't he realize I wanted nothing more to do with him? Edward was the perfect example of a pig-headed man, just without my father's cold-hearted attitude. He had a heart, I still knew that. "Good afternoon, Bella." The leather bound bible suddenly became very interesting, more so that I didn't realize when his body created a dip in the mattress next to my legs. "Please look at me." His usually coarse voice was so smooth and violin-like. Why did he want me to? So he could memorize the way he morphed my face into something uglier? Was he going to gloat with his friends about how large the bruise was? I bet he was going to make a mental note of the peculiar shade of violet and navy blue it would be.

"Get out. Get out of my room." It was suddenly déjà vu. wasn't that nearly exactly what my mother said?

His heavy sigh made me cringe in desperation. If he threw me out… where would I go? How would I live, as a maiden in my older cousin's home? With the sister-in-law I never had? With parents that were long gone off of the grid of humanity? Déjà vu, again. I was thinking like a desperate housewife with no real world skills apart from husbandly-based ones- just like my own mother. "I wanted to invite you to dinner. It's been lonely eating on my own this week." His large hand patted my covered knee fondly.

I wanted to scream, "don't touch me," but I stayed reserved. Edward wasn't getting a reaction out of me. "I'm not hungry."

"Yes, you must be-" He began again, soft as could be.

"No, I'm not!" I rallied back. "Is this what you came for?" I swiftly turned my face and lifted a few strands of hair from my heart-shaped face tipped my chin in his direct gaze. "You wanted to see my horrible face to remind yourself how tough and strong you are? Well, here you go! Here it is." Tears formed in my eyes, but my mom never cried. I wouldn't cry.

His face was like stone, and I almost regretted being so confrontational. He obviously didn't come in my room, so softly and kindly, to start a fuss or go at it again. Edward's eyes left my face sooner than I imagined. "I am sorry, Isabella. I never meant to let the worse part of me hurt you." Well, it did. And there was no sorry in the world to take back what he did to me! "Please forgive me." I took a good look at him; were those real tears? Did he really mean that he was sorry- but then again, what did "sorry" mean to him? Did "sorry" mean that he was never going to do that again? Or was "sorry" a scapegoat to get past an obstacle just to repeat the mistake? "You're the greatest part of my life- it angered me to hear you say all of those foul things about the life that I thought you wanted. This house in the country- I bought it to make you happy. The stocked library on the second floor- created to fulfill every reading desire you could ever conjure. I have only wanted your happiness, Isabella."

Yeah, well, slapping someone like they were your household pet wasn't very near to "happiness" to me. "I do appreciate everything you've done for me. I am happy." I replied flatly. "I'm just lonely. I miss my parents, even if they weren't best thing to happen to me." The corners of my mouth lifted in my lame effort to smile. "I suppose the liquor cabinets will be locked for my safety also?"

His burly chuckle brought fresh life into my face. "And for your happiness, as well." The teasing bemusement in his eyes made me want to so something spontaneous. I had two immediate actions in my mind- clutch the golden-paged book and hit him across the face with it, or reach over the distance and plant a hard kiss against his open lips. I proceeded with the latter. And as I moved my lips with his, the tip of my tongue felt like it was occasionally rubbing against a small grain of sandpaper. I pulled back in a short retreat, as his lips opted to stay glued to mine- Edward's lips had always been so soft. He pulled me to him, stripping me of my protective blankets and multi-colored quilt and now sat upon his lap. With his impending erection pressing firmly near my back, I angled my lips away from his and took a good look at him. "I love when you stare at me like that." He replied in a low growl.

_**But I will hold on hope,And I won't let you choke-On the noose around your neck**__._

"What's this?" I touched the cut on his top lip softly, and pulled away when I mistook his crooked smile as a wince.

"A little brown-eyed girl half my size sent me a good one the other day. I kept the battle wound to show off to all of my pals downtown." My lower lip quivered. I did that to him? I touched it again, this time rubbing it in a soothing motion.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think I had it in me to actually… leave a mark." Wasn't I the one that was just complaining about other people leaving their branding upon me?

"I'll live." And he kissed me again.

I still hated him.

**A/N: **

**I love their relationship, as dysfunctional as it may be. Abuse was too common in those days, unfortunately. And as far as her mother goes… well, Rene wasn't a fool. But she wasn't at all that smart, either. I wrote some of this chapter in vision of my own childhood, and I'd like to reach out to everyone out there who has grown up in an abusive home or is currently living in one.**

**You will prevail, and life does get better. Feel free to review with questions, complaints, comments. Anyone want to share a childhood "hang-up" that carried on into adulthood? I'd like to hear it. **


	14. One That Got Away

**A/N: ARTIST OF THE WEEK:**

**Katy Perry.**

**The song I used was "The One That Got Away". The song is set like a decade or two after the time period Bella is in… but oh, well! The theme is apparent.**

**Bella POV-**

I let him hold my waist like a good moll would do, but it was the wild atmosphere that I drowned myself in. Agnes Caldwell was playing live on the center stage, stacks of straws and bails of hay settled all around her so that the whites could sit for a spell and enjoy her exciting music. She was the epitome of jazz, as well as the most beautiful woman of color that my eyes had ever seen. Agnes was a legend to behold, and I just knew that the wages she was being paid was not one quarter the right amount she should have been. Her name belonged up there with Marlene Dietrich, Jane Green, Carole Lombard. "Bella- Bella!" Rosalie waved her pale hand in front of my face before shooting me daggers. "Where's your head at?" I shrugged, because I honestly didn't know. What made me suddenly care about music- especially jazz? Maybe it was my way of trying to ignore the fact that I hid an ugly bruise under all of my cosmetics. Maybe it was the truth that I wanted to tell my dear cousin everything, but knew I couldn't.

Edward's fingers squeezed my side, signaling that I should start acting normal again. People like Alice and Rosalie would start to get nosey if I kept up with this attitude. "Oh, nowhere exactly. But I do want to take a better listen to Agnes Caldwell, if you all don't mind?" Rosalie was hand-in-hand with Emmett, whom wore his ever-intimidating feathered fedora (and so did Edward have the suave ensemble of a businessman) but even then, he seemed whimsical with his glossy eyes set on my cousin. Alice had her companion on his tiptoes, as she didn't often seek the arm of a man, except for Reynaldo. I shut my eyes- that was months ago. His death could no longer touch us, I preached. To my surprise, everyone agreed and we made a distinct bee-line for the showcase, and even if it was crowded, I was utterly amazed at what I saw. She was more beautiful in person, rather than in the premiere posters hung around town.

"If my dad could see this now, truly. A colored woman, taking the stage and entertaining us with her crazy-hearted music. It makes our blood sizzle with excitement, and yet we get nothing in return for our attention." Alice looked on, taking no time to rebuttal her date's slashing comment. Just who did he think he was, some sort of a God that people should look up to and pay all heed to? Well, he was mistaken. We weren't statuesque "uptowns" with white supremacy on our minds. We were in the Northern states, and slavery was abolished a long time ago. Agnes was a free woman, with the talent that seldom whites, in their glittery gowns and expensive microphones, have in the singing industry.

I looked onto Edward to say something in return; he knew what it was like to be discriminated against for color. His grandfather was a dark Italian, with a tongue and attitude so different from those in the land that he traveled to by sea. Would it have been different if it were Giulietta Simionato, the controversial Soprano songstress, that he was talking down on? Would my fiancé have stood for the woman if she were Italian? When he made no move to put him in his place, I looked back at her and dreamed on. Agnes was curvy and tall, looking out of place between the viola player and drummer. They were short, skinny men of different colors- the drummer was unmistakably Mexican. And the viola player was a lighter shade of brown, not so dark as Agnes herself. I respected her, not because I deluded myself for a second in believing that we came from the same circumstance, but because she stood so beautiful, and so tall. Agnes rose from the depths of which her natural-born skin color put her in. Agnes was a fighter, and she fought many different enemies. One of them being Fredrick Dougherty, the man on Alice's shoulder. But he wasn't an average blue-blooded white man. He was an Irish.

I could tell by the way his lips curved in, and that hair almost tinted blond in the sunlight. There was almost the hint of an accented slur on his tongue- not to mention the fact that he was already three glasses of cognac ahead of Emmett and Edward. "I think the music is fine." Rosalie pursed her lips against Fred. "She's a hep-cat. If you could keep your mother's nagging mouth away from your ear for more than a few seconds, you would realize that what she's singing is the bee's knees." I blinked in shock; Rosa usually stayed out of matters that were too controversial for words. She was a single woman, who occasionally sought a man's lingering touch- and she lived on her, made her own living, and could dance all night long at a swing club. Rosa was a controversy, if there ever was one.

"Easy for you to say. You've got the legs of a loose bolt, but the face of Venus. Look at her." Fredrick gestured to Agnes with a demeaning finger. "Unattractively tall, big around the edges. What man is going to love her? From her music, she hates her own blood. And everyone else hates her." He said it with such conviction… it was almost like he knew her on a personal level. "What kind of woman would she be in a home? A lousy one." He scoffed and took a swig from his beer.

"What of it is your business? If she wants to live a single lifestyle and dislike people of her choosing, I assure you that _you _are the last person she must request approval from." There was a dim flame in his eyes as she continued on. "You may say I'm loose, but you're uptight." No one stopped her. Alice just listened on with half of a heart, and Emmett held her hand tight. "Your own inhibition keeps you from tasting a colored woman's flesh. That is why you're so ravishingly jealous, yes? You've got all this pent up lust for a type of woman that your mother and your mind would never let you have. And all this exciting, blood-sizzling jazz just tops the cherry of the sundae." Rosalie ended with a cute thrust of shoulders, her minx shoulder wrap and long, blonde hair framing her cunning features. "Don't take it out on Agnes. She's beautiful."

Alice sighed and fingered the seam of the pretend pockets of her sailor-striped tunic. "I'm not feeling well." I was instantly at her side, grabbing her small arm in my crème wrist gloves and prompting her to stand with me. "No- no, I just… I need a refreshment, is all." Fredrick nodded solemnly and stood up, avoiding eye contact with the two men in our ensemble. He muttered a farewell before taking Alice's elbow and strolling towards the spirits booths on the other side of the carnival. All of that talk must have disturbed Alice, seeing as her oh-so-gentle nature was too fragile to withstand adult conversation- and any sort of patronizing from Rosalie's mouth. Said object was cuddling up to her massive date, feeding the swooning six feet of putty.

"You can thank me now." Rosa looked at me pointedly, her thin lips painted in red and her eyes framed with a hazy green shadow product. I didn't say a word. What was I supposed to say? _Thanks, Rosalie, for fighting another battle for me_. No, it was all wrong… I should have been strong enough and stood up for what I believed in. I should have been the one to make Fredrick go pink in the face.

"Quit that, doll face." Emmett preened sweetly. "Bella's too young; Freddy would have chewed her up and spit her out when it came to ethics. It wouldn't have been pretty, either. At the first mention of her untouched virtue in the social realm, Edward would have had him strung from limb to limb. Isn't that right, Eddie?" Edward said nothing, just sat back on his seat sipped from an open beer like a worthless use of Nitrogen and Oxygen he was! But I didn't doubt that he would have been right there for me when I needed him. Edward was a lifesaver thrown to me one too many times, but I didn't have enough pride nor dignity to ever reject him.

And why did Emmett call her doll face? There were already giving one another pet names? That was disgusting. "Thanks, Rosa. Maybe I'll have the guts to say something next time. I appreciate your opportunist virtue." Because we all knew that her natural born virtue was given away before she turned fifteen (or maybe I was the only one who knew that little part)- Rosa made up for her lack of demurity by being loud and ignoring standard society rules.

"Was that a back-handed compliment?" Rosa smirked down at me, but turned back to Agnes and the Brothers once more. I leered at the name- Agnes and the Brothers. They deserved a grandeur name… something regal and perhaps in a different language! But who was I to say? I wasn't some fast acting agent with a million things on my mind. I was Bella Swan, the five month fiancé of a mobster, and the daughter of a has-been Chief of Police. I was something, alright- but not to any of the right people. To the criminals I was the uptown daddy's girl, born under the sun and always the law-abiding girl. To the law, I was the slimy, sticky-fingered brat of a dirty cop. I wasn't accepted here or there. My presence didn't belong in this realm, and I seriously didn't belong with Edward.

Our conversation died down until we dwindled into a calm bull session, where Rosalie and Emmett pointed out dumb doras in the crowd and I just nodded to their arguments. Agnes stepped off the stage, after a prolonged goodbye with plenty catcalls and hoots of applause, and so her "Brothers" disassembled their equipment and took everything that could have reminded me of them. When would I witness their beautiful music again? Edward only liked Opera, and he really didn't enjoy the Jazz that so inspired me. "We would do best by taking our leave. Isabella and I have an engagement in the morning." Edward announced abruptly, and I suddenly felt the need to hang on to his every word. Engagement? Edward and I didn't do very many things together. It must have been something to do with a social duty or something for our wedding plans.

We walked hand in hand to his green car, and I didn't feel bad for driving in the nicest, shiniest one in the lot. "Do you think less of me for not say anything?" I spluttered out spontaneously. For some psychotic reason, I needed to hear him console me.

He shrugged his long shoulders, the hint of a smile on his face. "It isn't a bad thing that you know your place and when not to speak your mind. Your fiery cousin doesn't when to shut her mouth, and that may just be her demise. Especially if she and Emmett make it through the honeymoon phase." I nodded. Of all the times I knew when to shut up and actually did, it had to be now? With my cousin and new sibling-in-laws there? "You're smart, Isabella- don't ever allow your common sense be taken over by your silver tongue." We were on my side of the car, with the passenger door open but my body wasn't inside of the car. I leaned my head and back against the frame of the opened door, and just stared at him. In the sunset, he was so beautiful. His silhouette was domineering and too regal for mortal words, but there was this thudding heart in his wide expanse of a chest that I wanted to see. "Because if a man ever crosses you, in a way that makes you cry or even feel hurt," Edward leaned in and pressed his mouth against my cheek and stared at me so pensively, "I will kill him. And if a man ever touches you… intimate or violent, I swear it," he cleared his throat, but the emotion was already on his face, "there wont be a merciful bone in my body, and I will tie him to a chair and rip him to shreds-" To save myself from the gruesome tale that he would spin, I pressed my lips to his and thrust my tongue deep inside his mouth.

I knew his weaknesses. I knew how to shut him up when I needed to. "I know, Edward." I held his face in my hands and got on my tip toes to meet his eye level. "I know." I never wanted to witness that part of Edward, I never wanted to meet that monster inside of him. I knew that he had the money and the looks, but his ethics were out of whack and I didn't always believe in his emotionality. I just didn't want to end up like Agnes, bitter with regret and angry with hate for men and their _wicked _ways. I didn't want regrets, and I didn't want Edward killing or torturing another for me. Edward was becoming my everything, and that was something I never wanted to lose.

What was a woman when she lost her everything?

Nothing.

"_**All this money can't buy me a time can't replace you with a million rings.I should've told you what you meant to me,'Cause now I pay the price."**_

**A/N: So, how did you like it? Who do you think Miss Agnes is in real life?**

**Look up these singer if you don't recognize their names. They are LEGENDS and beautiful to listen to.**

**REVIEW PROMPT****: review or pm me with a real life experience with cheats of men, or a cute little story of love/forgiveness/discovery like we've seen Bella and Edward in the last two chapters. I'm in need of a little diversity : ).**

**H**_**appy LATE Valentines Day.**_


	15. Just Forget The World

**A/N: Back at it again! Hope you like this one.**

**ARITST OF THE WEEK:**

**Snow Patrol. The song I used is called "Chasing Cars."**

"Red roses sound divine, don't they?" Esme's smile was wide enough to cover her entire face. I feigned a smile and nodded for the hundredth time that day; first the linen store, than the shoe outlet, now the florist shop. How many details really went into planning a wedding? This whole thing started out as one shotgun-type deal, where I was bartered for another's protection. I wasn't mean to be served my dreamesque white wedding on a silver platter. "Are you feeling fresh enough to visit my seamstress on 45th avenue? She is absolutely divine, and I have used her for my own private dress sewing and-"

"Yes, Mrs. Cullenciano." I stopped her short, feeling my pounding headache begin. "Yes, I would love to." No, of course I didn't want to meet the woman that would sew me up in a humungous, white gown with heavy beading and too much lace. But the vulnerable expression she wore promised to never be dampened, and I just didn't have it in me to put her down. The dress fitting was just as I knew it would be- two prattling older ladies with a knack for planning events down to a tee. I stood still for over an hour as Mrs. Trevinallo stuck pins and needles through the drabby tunic to eye where different parts of my dress would be. "Where is Alice?" I suddenly realized I was missing a main component of every one of my recent shopping experiences, and it felt odd that she wasn't right here with me.

Esme had guarded eyes when she spoke from her sitting position at a farther end of the room. "She had a lunch date with Fredrick's mother this afternoon; tell me, Bella, do you like Fredrick?" Was she talking about his character, or the fact that he was in her life at all? Sometimes I wondered, by the way her entire family acted about Reynaldo, if she was centered for doom- no man she was ever with lasted very long, and her most recent lover that lasted longer than the rest was murdered. Of course, by a rival gang trying to make a statement, but weren't things like that set up everyday in this type of life? Sure, it was far-fetched and most likely untrue, but I still wondered.

I kept my head up and tried to take steady breaths as to not affect Mrs. Trevinallo's work at my feet. "No." I answered simply, feeling myself teeter atop the fancy two-foot stool she put me on. "He has no personality, and refuses to meet the new frontier that is soon approaching." Esme and Mrs. Trevinallo shared amused smirks before their eyes went back up to me. What, they didn't believe in the modernizations and new things? Gee, if only they had seen the nasty way Freddy acted last week. Then they would have known how horrible it was that colors and non-colors didn't mix.

"Your synopsis of the _new frontier_, Miss Swan?" Mrs. Trevinallo inquired with a raised eyebrow, which was drawn on with two pointy ends. I was suddenly embarrassed that I even said anything- what if they suddenly hated me for my simple opinion? Lots of folks didn't like the idea that we all, as a whole, could one day get a long and eat at the very same dinner tables. The Cullencianos weren't very impressionable people, and when something wasn't to their liking they made it… disappear. And even if I knew they would never get rid of me like that (Edward worked far too hard to get me under his thumb), I still worried that I would step on somebody's toes with my radical beliefs.

"Every shade of skin can _and _will get along, Mrs. Trevinallo." I refrained from using a snappy tone, seeing as she and Esme were good friends and I doubted my mother-in-law would ever take my side over an old pal's. "We will share the same dance floors, eat at the same restaurants with the same silverware and tables, use the same doctors. Our children will learn from the very same teachers, and will converse on a daily basis without thinking twice about color. There will be no segregation." And it wasn't just blacks that I was referring to- I was talking about every race and walk of this Earth. The poor and the wealthy could mingle, the old and the young, even the very meanest could be brought to see the light of day! Why was that such a stretch of the imagination? Humans created the automobile, and we thought about using two body parts to produce multiple lives. How was it not possible for us to live among each other, peacefully?

The snippy seamstress pursed her red lips and sent me a look over her glasses. "And you're just going to demand everyone to get along, then?"

"What-…no, no! There is no demanding of any sort. It will be set in with peace, not forcefulness. Segregation was forced." starting with Jim Crowe laws and stretching farther out, we were ordered by the government to alienate ourselves from another type of human- the darker skinned ones. How ridiculous was that?

"Look how effective it is." She shrugged her shoulders, as if the matter didn't care and it was all going to work itself out. What did she mean, _effective_? Those laws only divided us as a country! "I am Italian, Miss Swan." She, for some reason, needed to clarify her race to me. "They came for the _indios_, and since no one important enough to stand up was Native American, no one said a word. Again they came for the _Mexicanos_, and since no one important enough stood up for the _Mexicanos_, no one said anything. Then they came for the blacks, " her thick accent filled the room with the promise of rich sauces and home-cooked breads, "and no one stood up for the blacks, and nobody said a word." I swallowed loudly, feeling so out of place talking to a worldly woman like her. Esme agreed with everything I said, and always complimented me on my open perception of the world around me. Mrs. Trevinallo just made me feel stupid for opening my big mouth. "So they took them." Her long nails grazed over my uncovered arm, but ii felt completely nude in front of her. "But when they come for the _Italianos _and the Irish, we know we are important enough to stand up for ourselves- we will never need a small girl with big eyes and a cop for a daddy to preach for deaf ears."

My heart fell heavy in my chest; was that all I truly was? A cop's wide-eyed, weakling daughter with too big of dreams that did absolutely nothing about them? "Now, now, Paula. That was uncalled for." Esme clapped her hands quietly and regarded her long-time friend with a steady gaze as she made her way to us. "But this gown is going to look divine. I can just see you now- Isabella!" I ignored her elegant shrieks as I ripped the fabric off of me and stomped around it to make sure it was absolutely dead. She was the last person I was going to hear put me down!

"You are a rude, old bint!" I called angrily and snatched up the white material in my hands before shoving it under her nose. "Your virtues and morals are far off, Mrs. Trevinallo and I will do the best to you and pray that you are forgiven at the pearly gates of eternal paradise!" With that, I tossed the disgusting fabric at her and collected my things. "Good day." I bowed my head politely before stepping out of the pale shop and padded down the pavement towards our hired driver's black car. Energy and adrenaline coursed through my veins. That was so enlightening and uplifting, I wanted to suddenly stand up to everyone and preach what I knew to be truth!

"_**Forget what we're told,**_

_**Before we get too old.**_

_**Show me a garden**_

_**That's bursting into life."**_

**A/N: Go Bella! Finally standing up for what she believes.**

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**In your review, WRITE one thing you would like to see in the story. It can be something silly like a weird object, to something a certain character says.**

**The first twelve (its been my lucky number lately) people to review the story with a are going to get a sneak peak of the next chapter! Thanks, guys.**


	16. Hallelujah

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, the series, or anything affiliated with it. All belongs to Stephanie Meyer.**

"You know everyone's talking about your spiel last week." Alice pointed out sassily, her beady little eyes concentrated on a piece of cloth she was working at. I put a finger at the word I left off at and looked up at her with nonchalance- so what? Since when did she care what anybody thought? "But I still don't know how Mom took it since her silence is so convincing; either she hates your guts for embarrassing her name or loves you for saying something so true." She didn't carelessly shrug or send me one of those weird smiles, she just let the silence in-between us grow more awkward by the minute. So, she didn't feel weird telling me something like that? What was _wrong _with her?

"Oh." Was my only reply, but really- what else could I say to defend myself? I slipped in my satin bookmark and closed Wuthering Heights before setting it down on the oak coffee table beside me. I tried not to read it in front of Edward, mostly because he had too much contempt for the piece of rebelling literature. I didn't see the harm in the book- what was wrong with self-expression, if not in a menacing society of dirty political bosses and gossiping women? But still, whenever he saw me re-reading it, he would unleash a wrath of sarcastic jibes and nasty remarks about it. "I really didn't mean to offend Mrs. Cullenciano-" I still didn't have the nerve to call her "Esme", for if we ever had the chance of being friends before she took me to get fitted, we had absolutely none now. That was plainly obvious!

"Yes, well, perhaps you should take more thought the next time you say something so risqué!" Alice exploded suddenly, tossing aside her crocheting for an onslaught of words. "This is not your family's Riviera country club, Isabella! You no longer have your precious daddy's intimidating face to send away all of the nay-sayers you run into!"

I jumped to my feet and pointed a mean finger at her. "How dare you, Alice! You know that I never needed my dad's help to save myself. This is who I am, whether or not that fits in this world!" And that was just it- I didn't belong in this world, it wasn't for me. I belonged in a white picket fence, with a law-abiding man and our four kids. My name and soul didn't need to be here, with a man with crazy hair and a moody persona. "You're right- maybe I should leave Edward and go find myself a boy like Fredrick." I sent her a twisted glare, putting all of my frustration and guilt into the nasty look.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Alice crossed her arms, obviously put-off that I was insinuating only what she thought of her fiancé. He was a nasty, nasty vermin!

"Your fiancé is swine, Alice, and all he does is control your every move! You don't even have your own voice anymore, don't you know that? He's taken it, further along the nasty, winding path your marriage will surely take!" It felt lonely to know that by revealing the truth we both knew, I would have no more real friends to depend on. Rosalie was so worked over her own life, and everyone from my past no longer knew nor wanted to remember my name anymore. "And everybody just pretends like your happy, just like Reynaldo is gone now. Like he never happened, and like you two never promised one another forever." My eyes watered uncontrollably. What would happen if it lost Edward right now, and I never truly got to see him again? I was sure that he would come home that night, perhaps stumbling from the devil's water or red-faced from a day full of confrontations. But hadn't Alice been sure that her lover would return… in the same case that mine would?

She looked ready to pounce from across the room, seeing as her chest heaved up and down in a maniacal pattern, but then her lower lip trembled and her bony fingers dangled uselessly beside her platinum colored day dress, no longer crunched into fists of anger. "I still love him so much." Her small shoulders shook with all of the pain she still held within her, but her eyes still held mine in a grasp too strong to walk away from. "Reynaldo is the only man I have ever loved, and ever will." My heart sank right in my chest. God, I was an awful person! How could I bring up something so delicate and breakable to a woman that I knew couldn't handle it? I was a monster, simple.

"I'm sorry, Alice, I really didn't mean… I don't know why I brought him up. It was idiotic." I whispered softly, trying my hardest to blink away the traitorous tears that fell down my cheeks. Her eyes finally shut and her face screwed up into an expression of despair; I pushed aside the constricting coffee table and gathered her into my arms. I tried my hardest to hush her loud sobs, but they carried off the walls of my empty countryside home. Nothing mattered, because we were in pain. Our differences to the world and radical logics about love and the matters of what made the universe hate us thoroughly, and that bitch was really pissing me off lately. Where my good gal Karma at when I needed her? I always did so much good in my life, why was I paying for sins I hadn't ever committed?

Two weeks later-

She sat next to Fredrick, her liquid dynamite smile faking the entire meal before her. I looked down at my plate of untouched lobster and idly fidgeted with my own fingers beneath the table until Edward placed his own hand over mine. A sense of calamity and coolness bathed over me and I felt illuminated in his light- why did he have that much power over me and my feelings? It wasn't right that he was capable of making that sort of impact. "To us!" Fredrick toasted his third glass of imported champagne, sending a suggestive smile her way for the thrice turn. I rolled my eyes and guided my angry eyes away from his despicable self! "There is an announcement we must make." He straightened his bowtie and stood up, his half-full flute shimmering in the dimly lit restaurant Alice chose for tonight's event. "To our friends and family, Alice and I would like to announce our engagement formally." At everyone's forced applause, he smiled like the nomad jerk he was. "Our love is incomparable, and may I say even inevitable." Alice avoided my gaze as she smiled up at her fiancé.

_Inescapable, too_, I wanted to add but didn't have the guts to embarrass him in front of everyone. Since the other day when Alice poured her heart out on my sofa, we hadn't spoken much in order to restore the nonchalance we had been content with earlier. I let her think she was making the right move by pretending with Fredrick, and she quit trying to explain why it was wrong for me to use my relationship ties as foundation to preach about what this government needed to do. She and I were two very similar figures, but weren't ever meant to really be friends. We were too smart, too in-touch with both our feminine and masculine sides, and lastly- we loved our own far too much. I knew we were ahead of our time, but no one else did. Everyone else just assumed we were rebelling against tradition and customs, and were only trying to burn our bras above circular pits in a riot. But then, I cared not for the collective way.

It wasn't until dinner was over and we were making our way back to our hotel room that I began to lose the hold that I had on my tears. With my high-heels in hand and clutch wedged between my inner arm and waist, I held onto his hand tighter. He was my rock, now- he forced himself into my life and made his face the center of my world. I lifted my arm and wiped at the stray perspiration upon my cheeks, but not before he stopped us in the middle of the hall and whipped me around. "What's wrong, Isabella?" When I failed to answer, he took my face in both of his hands and touched the center of my eyes with his- it was as if he could read right through me and realize just what was wrong without me saying a word. "Was it something that I said at dinner?"

I shook my head and placed my hands over his, trying to keep his warmth close to me. My purse and shoes fell to the floor, but I failed to care. They were material possessions after all, and when I passed from this world to the next, I couldn't take them with me anyway. "This is nothing to do with you." For once, I wasn't lying. "It's about… it's just- Alice!" I spluttered and doubted he understood anything I had to say. "Alice and… that evil man." I murmured the last part softly, regretting my use of words almost immediately.

"Fredrick is a monster, yes, Bella- but what has that got to do with you? Has he touched you, Isabella? Did he say anything to you when I left to the lavatories tonight-" I shook my head again, dispelling his anger. A confused look crossed his face before his brows knitted and his lips pursed. "He has done something to Alice, then."

My lower lip sucked in. "No, Edward. Its nothing like that, I promise. I just…" I sniffled and tried my best to clear my throat for the words I needed to say to him.

"Hey there, Edward! Some of my college pals are in the lobby, we're about to head out on the town." And by that, Fredrick meant to Rosemount's Ranch- a filthy whorehouse stacked to the ceilings with cheap whores and flesh-eating diseases! It was a last minute decision of Alice's to invite her family to a small vacation here in Atlantic City, and personally I had never heard of her odd wanton to come to a city to Eastern. Why not all the way to New York city? Why _Atlantic City_? Fredrick spared me one brief glance, but he made sure not to put any emotion into it. Edward would snap his neck at the first chance he got, I was sure of it.

"I must decline your offer, Fredrick. My prior engagements are pressing; where exactly is my sister, though? I was under the impression that this was a familial holiday?" Even though he let go of me and stood closer to Freddy, as if to shield me from their conversation, I still felt the heat of his words. _Tell him, baby!_

"Alice is…" he gulped nervously. "She's in the hotel room downstairs. She, uh, she's the one that gave me the idea to bring some of my old pals over for a few drinks." I rolled my eyes. Even if that were true, I knew why she really wanted to be alone. It meant a few minutes without his nagging mouth at her ear! Our decision to dine and pick this hotel was nothing short of a whimsical trail of fate. Alice planned nothing, and we were just following her. "Guess I'll see you tomorrow morning, then. Night." He called awkwardly before turning around and disappearing behind a bend in the hallway. If only he would get lost and never, ever return to us! Edward came back to me and helped me with my things as we traveled to our hotel suite on the tenth floor. I cried some more on his shoulder before sleep finally stole me, but not before I fought it in vain.

Decades later, I looked back on this moment and realize that my emotional reactions were quite dramatic and for the effect, I shouldn't have been so severe with my methodical thinking. But I was granted one wish that night- Fredrick did receive just what he deserved. And oh, so much more.


	17. My First Taste Of Love

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, the series, or anything affiliated with it. All belongs to Stephanie Meyer.**

**Rated M for "mature".**

Edward laid in bed with me and rubbed my arms to soothe all of the worry from the day- I sorely wished that this side of Edward would always be present, not the jackass version of him. "I'm sorry, Edward." I admitted lowly.

"And what are you apologizing for this time?" I wanted to scoff, but I only pursed my lips, seeing as my back was turned to him. Couldn't he just take an apology for what it was? It was already demeaning enough that I had to admit to my wrongs, let alone explain them to him step by step.

"Last week, when your mother took me dress shopping. And what I said to that tailor… I truly didn't mean to explode the way I did." At first, I was sure he was going to let his fury rain down on me when I got home, seeing as his mother was the sunshine in his life and no one could meddle in that. But we merely ate dinner than shared a cigar before bed, with no disturbances or such to disrupt it. Either she hadn't told him, or it just didn't matter to him. "It was just so frustrating the way she was talking… she was such a bigoted woman, it was awful!" I shook my head and felt my shoulders tense up all over again, even if his golden touch had relaxed every last muscle just minutes before. "It's people like her that keep this country so close-minded. The new frontier!" I felt the lump form in my throat with the pride and conviction I had for this cause.

His demeaning chuckle sent a mad color to my cheeks. "Oh, darling, you are too spirited for words."

"So… you're not angry with me?" I felt like a puppet asking my puppet master for permission to be a real boy, but I just felt like I needed this. Like he was only case of water in the Gandhi desert.

"Am I angry? No, I am not. Though I am embarrassed that my future wife dabbles her small nose into political matters that are better left for men to create and alter. Embarrassment quells, anger does not. Do you understand that, Isabella?" He grew cold beside me, so I snuggled my backside deeper into him. Of course I understood what he was saying- I wasn't so sure why it meant so much for me to get his approval, but his words just shot me down. I figured that I would have taken his fury over his shame any day! I saw where he was coming from, as a younger man with a very young wife in this society, but couldn't he just accept my views and support me on this? I never went to him for much else. Weren't Italian men supposed to yearn to meet everyone of their woman's needs? Or was that just a dying theme I read too many times in my secret love novels?

"I am nothing you should be embarrassed of." I wanted to quip with the fact that his mother was the one who sat and said nothing- but I respected her nonetheless, seeing as she was always looking out for her husband's reputation firstly. I didn't know much of her own personal opinions, but I was sure that if we were able to pow-wow together in a controlled setting, we would be two of the same minds. I just knew that she had her own copy of Wuthering Heights, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Emily Dickson poetry… even if she had to hide them inside of her mattress of day purse, I knew she had the same guilty pleasures as I. "You should have been proud that I said something, rather than be mute about all of the wrong the world is." And there I was, chastising and judging my own fiancé right at his face. It wasn't the best way to win over his heart and vote, but we had nothing deeper to go off of.

"You know of all the wrong this world has to offer then, Isabella? You have seen the tyranny and poverty this country has to give? Please, Bella, save the "world is hungry" banter for someone like Alice. I do not care of the things that will never affect me, for there are too many others willing to jump right in front of the steam engine." I collected a fistful of bed sheets beside me head and said nothing, but merely shouldered off his hand. I didn't want a man like him touching me, hell, I didn't even want him to marry me!

"You sound just like that woman, I hope you know!" I could take no more and so I sat up in bed and turned to face him- there was a wild glint in his green eyes, with a playful smirk atop his lips. What, what was so funny about this? "Why do you look as if you want to laugh? Are you that heartless, taking pleasure in other's demise? And so what if I haven't seen the poor in their raw, I have read and heard firsthand about such things! Do not think for one minute that I am ignorant to the horrible of this country, Edward, because you would be sorely mistaken! I know it exists." my chest was heaving up and down, and with every word his eyes grew a little more excited. "What?" I inquired again, wanting to hear any reply he would give me. Rejection, applause, bravo- I would have taken anything but that creepy stare he was giving me!

Before I knew it, he propped up on one elbow and took my cheek in his other hand, a red, hot searing kiss engulfing my lips all at once. I moaned into the lip lock, loving how he ran his tongue over my bottom lip. The new frontier, racism, and poverty all went away when he kissed me hungrily- he was drinking from my lips, and I would have it no other way. I only pulled away when I had no breath left, and he began taking small bites from my open mouth; my eyes were shut in concentration, and my hands were on his chest with me directly atop him. This was a comprising position, and seeing as we were still unwed, a holy sin and disruptive moral clause. I dipped my mouth between his neck and shoulder, sucking his skin to bring to the top of his skin. Affection wasn't very often with us; he was always working and I was always picking fights between us, so this was a nice spin on things. I moaned when he slipped a sleuth hand in the waistband of my nighttime shorts- his other hand was holding the back of my neck to keep my face where it was. Rosalie had warned me a few years back, when she assumed I would start to have likings with boys, how some men had a harsh dislike for love marks.

I had no hate nor like for them, but Edward had never done that to me before. I figured I would take the initiative and see just how sweet his skin tasted under my tongue. And he tasted so divine- like sweetened salt, with a side of a very masculine ambrosia. His infiltrating hand wove though my cotton panties and moved over every inch of skin I had. He just gently brushed over the upper skin of my womanhood, and I arched my body into him with a animalistic hiss of my own. "Does this feel like ecstasy?" Edward murmured into my ear as he pulled on the strands of loose curls at the nape of my neck; I nodded eagerly and sucked harder on a spot right above his collarbone. He wore collared suits everyday, there was no way anybody would be able to see these marks I placed upon him, and for that I was supremely glad. I liked to experiment with him in the bed we shared, but I didn't want anyone to know what we were doing. I knew I would feel the same way once we were married, that shyness and demurity would never die from my soul. "Your body loves the way I touch you, does it not? Things are happening inside of you that you will never understand, Bella- like this, for instance." And he slid one finger inside of me; I tightened instantly and began to feel uncomfortable.

No one had ever… touched me there. My mother insisted that this was such a private place, no one should see it, not even myself until I was married. And then she went on to explain that only my husband would know how to handle my very treasured area, even if I didn't understand her wording. At the young age I was at, I didn't understand why anyone would have to "handle" that area. It was a part of me, it belonged to me! "Relax your body, Isabella, or this is going to hurt." I nodded in understanding, but still didn't make eye contact with him- how could I, when he was doing _that_? My eyes were downcast at his bare chest; Rosalie had also warned me that some men not only preferred eye contact, but would not finish their husbandly duties if eye contact was not made. Edward didn't make me do anything I didn't want as he continued to add more fingers, and when he stared moving around within me, I couldn't hold back the high-pitched groan I let out. I was embarrassed that I was the one making those sounds, but I had, and Edward didn't look like it weirded him out. "I want you be more responsive, Bella. Tell me when you do not like something I am doing, and make more of those noises. Though this an experience of pleasure solely for you, I also take pleasure in certain aspects. You see, if I do this," he flexed his three fingers inside of me and went at a certain pace, causing me to cry out in pleasure- I made eligible words and jumbled half syllables together, just to rid myself of the building pressure in my lower tummy, "my erection will grow bigger in size at the sound of your voice. Can you feel my erection rubbing against your stomach, Isabella?"

There was a type of precision in his words, and there was this unmistakable fluidity in his motions- he had done this so many times before. Would I be the only woman he was pleasuring once we were married? I chose not to bring a question like that up at the moment. "Y-yes… yes, I can-n- I can feel you." His free hand took hold of my upper leg, right below my bum, and yanked me up, then pulled me down. "Do you want me to-to…" I shut my eyes again at his spinster fingers, but there was a warm liquid zooming around in my stomach- it told me to make his fingers go further on their journey. "Can you… can you push deeper?"

Our eyes connected, and he only smiled. "If I push any further, I will break your hymen." I blushed at his explanation; my virginity was the only thing I had from my old life, and didn't I want to keep that?

"Do you want me to move against you… like that?" I demonstrated by grinding my hips against his own, and he nodded with a nasty growl in his throat. "I need you to… can you push deeper, Edward? I want to feel you _there_." I wasn't so sure where "there" was, but I wanted him at it. My body went on it's own accord as I pushed harder against him, making his face go from cool & collected to absolutely maniacal.

"Allow me to be inside of you, Isabella? I want the penetration to be own manhood, not this way." I hadn't thought that we would… real sex? Like the intercourse we were warned of in high school? The kind that brought pregnancy and disease, not the kid-type of deal we had dabbled in? But my right mind wasn't there and I nodded. He flipped my body to beneath his own and began to undress me. First went my shirt, than brazier- next my thin bottom wear. Edward put his mouth over my right… oh, I just couldn't see it for my own eye! I shut my brown opals and only allowed myself to feel what he was doing. He coaxed one perked breast with a hand, and with the other he used his expert mouth. I never dabbled in… pleasuring myself, and so all of these new gestures and feelings came to me in shocks of a baker's dozen. "Respond, Isabella. Tell me I am the only one to have tasted your skin."

How was he able to make sentences with us like this, so close and upfront? "You… you are the first man to touch me. And this feels… so well." I shuddered when his moist mouth left me to trail down my stomach, and then right above the hemline of my panties. His eyes caught my own, and I merely nodded to let him know that I was still on for what we were going to do. There was absolutely no telling what he would feel like… was it as painful as Rosalie said it was? I waited not much longer, as he devoured my womanly parts with first his mouth and then his hands again. I climaxed many times before he actually situated himself above me and pushed in.

When he did, I saw stars and nearly passed out. He felt awkward and far too large inside me- how big was a woman's vagina, anyway? His penis looked far too thick to fit into the thing I thought I owned. But inch by painful inch, he tipped his erect penis in and finally shuddered when his end touched against my very inner walls. "Edward, it hurts!" I felt myself saying, but the blood pulsing in my ears didn't allow me to hear myself; he pulled out and kissed me a few more times before slamming back in, and had I paid more attention or cared enough to listen, I might have heard my virginity being ripped in half. I cried out in pain and gripped his shoulders for dear life; when I could his strokes any longer, I buried my forehead under his strong jaw line. "Edward… oh!" But then it started feeling good, not because I liked constantly pulsing around him, but because a small piece of comfort came with his penis fulfilling the missing piece of flesh a vagina had. "I need you there." I muttered in his ear, and here I was talking about "there" again!

He nodded- I figured that I could ask him any favor in the world, and in the state he was in, I would be granted my very wish. Edward brought both of my legs around him and prompted me to hold onto him tight. "If I begin to hurt you, please tell me. I would not have chosen to be this rough with you, Isabella," he whispered huskily against my throat, "but you seem to have an insatiable thirst beneath your inexperience." Another blush graced my skin, but this time I gnawed sensually on his shoulder and wound myself under his arms and my fingers dug into his skin the harder he pounded into me.

"You're irresistible, 'tis why." I spoke playfully into his ear. His booming laughter sent a smile to my face, but the next thing he did with our bodies wiped it right off. Edward broke away from my hold on him and pushed me against the bed before lifting my hips- I was confused as to why, but then he slammed his lower body into mine harder and faster than he ever was capable of doing with my latched on his upper body. He was on his knees with my area right over his, and I found that I couldn't look away from what we were doing. I gripped the white sheets beneath me, trying to hold onto every last bit of sanity I had left. "Edward! Edward!" His name was the only on my mind, and I felt it was necessary to call out to him. Something exploded in my lower navel, sending bright fireworks shooting behind my eyes and my grip on everything loosened. My fingers and toes went numb, but the rest of my body convulsed around and beside his body. This feeling was heavenly- with just enough spice to assure me that heaven wasn't even this great! "Ed- Edward." I murmured slowly, dragging out every last syllable in his name. "I love…" He was still slamming into me, trying to collect every last drop of my climax with the tip of his penis, and I was speaking so low and incoherently, I was sure he wouldn't hear. I needed to say how me made me feel, in those three simple words I couldn't regret.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," I felt like crying, but I wasn't going to ruin the greatness we were sharing.


	18. That's What You Get

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, the series, or anything affiliated with it. All belongs to Stephanie Meyer.**

**Rated M for "Mature". **

**Review! **

The sun peeked through the shutters of the hotel room, but I covered my eyes with a bare arm- the sun needed to sleep for another hour or two! A soft chuckle in the corner of the room brought me to attention as I creaked my neck around and peaked over my pillow at the intruder; Edward was sitting at a mild desk, with his hands clasped behind his head and a small plate of fruit in front of him. A folded newspaper and a stack of papers was signature and I wasn't surprised at their presence. "Who are you laughing at?" I sent a few daggers his way before sitting up and bringing a wrinkled sheet around my naked body.

"Certainly not at my dashing fiancé, whom now loathes the sun." I rolled my eyes but gave into the smile he gave me. I slipped out of bed and shuffled to him, taking a seat perched on his lap. He opened his arms so that they settled on my wide hip bones, instead of my smaller waist. "I did have intricate plans to feed my famished woman in bed," He teased as he nuzzled my neck, "but I had an early meeting this morning."

I took a deep breath and popped another grape into my mouth. "I thought we were on holiday?" I inquired and stared heavily at the glittering engagement ring on my finger- it symbolized what I gave ot this man, and what this man gave to me. "Work has nothing to do with a holiday."

Edward planted a firm kiss on my bare shoulder before resting his chin there. "I work so that these vacations are readily available for you." He always used that card- he always tried to make things about me and _my _needs!

"You could not have gone an entire week without a meeting or business phone call, could you?" I shook my head in a show of disappointment. Edward was work-orientated, when he wasn't trying to win my heart over. Sometimes those two matters crossed, and priorities got a bit mixed up, though. Money and glory was all he could see, with nothing else on the horizon- even when he touched my skin, I knew he was at the same time thinking about business deals and clients. "Even now that you have the most precious gift of my womanhood, all you can think of is bald men in bland suits?" I quirked my neck in his direction and sent him a pointed raised eyebrow.

His lips twitched into a smirk. "I apologize, Bella. You are first and foremost on my mind, to fall below no other." He then went to make love to my neck, attacking it with every stroke of his tongue and lap of his mouth. I moaned a lot of things and finished my plate of fruit before taking him to bed for more leisure lovemaking, spending hours upon hours until his thirst was sated and he feel into peaceful slumber. It was only nine o clock, and I was barely feeling sleep take over my vision when two stern raps sounded at the door while we were napping, and I was sore to realize it had only woken me from sleep. Edward was still snoozing lightly beside me, curled up against my back. I got up and wrapped a complimentary robe around my frame before I unlatched the door and opened it widely, forgetting there was a naked (from the waist up) Edward in the background. Alice shot through the door and prompted me to shut the door behind me. I was confused but did as she said and turned back to her. Her arms were folded in front of her and as she paced, I could see the quiver in her lips. I imagined what horrible deed Fred must have done, and how I would be very willing to kill him at the drop of a dime. She still hadn't said anything, just let her eyes dart back and forth across the expensive plaster of the wallpaper. "Where is my brother? Is he still in town?" She touched at her stain scarf with e touch of impatience.

Her voice wasn't recognizable to me, not at all. "No, he's uh… in bed." I pointed to the open shutters connecting to our bedroom to the suit. "Is everything alright, Alice? You don't look so well-"

"Wake up my brother." She cut me off and then averted her twinkling blue eyes. I was caught off guard by her blunt attitude for a few seconds, having seen this side of Alice but once before. I got up and did as she bid anyway- there had to be a method to her madness, there had to be a very logical explanation for her rudeness. I went through the doorway and around to his side of the bed to shake his shoulder until his eyes cracked open. His sly smirk made my stomach do summersaults, but I had to pull away before his selfish lips found mine; Edward's eyebrows furrowed at my retreat and the crass look on my face.

"Alice is here- I think something is very wrong." He shot up and slapped on a fresh pair of bottoms and a fitted shirt. Even in this emergency, I wanted to run my fingers all over his bulky chest and muscular back. But I ignored the sensations and moved with him back into the sitting room. "Alice?" Her back was turned to us, but at my voice she turned her head.

At the sight of her brother, she began crying her little blue eyes out- but she wasn't sobbing or wailing like I would have thought, she gusted tear after tear. I took a step for her, but Edward grabbed my hand and entwined our fingers together to keep me from moving through. "Alice, calm yourself." Edward was tightened his jaw to keep himself even, but I could tell how much it affected him to see his tiny sister like this.

She shook her head and held up her purse in a gesture of surrender; I hurried to grab it from her and she murmured over and over again, "open it". I followed her directions and gasped at what I saw- what on Earth was she doing with something like this? "Edward…" I rasped out and pointed her square, fine leather Louis Vuitton tote in his direction. His emerald eyes became daggers when the steel glistened in the fluorescent lights of the suit. Edward snatched it from my hands and took out the gun before throwing the purse to the ground (I nearly fainted when the priceless beauty fell right to the floor, did he know how much one of these cost to be sent to the United States?). And though I was never subjected to guns and the likes when I was younger, seeing as I grew up in a Christian household, I was sure handheld firearms were not supposed to be this big! "Alice, please- please tell me-" So many thoughts raced through my head- what had she done with that thing? Why was she even in possession of such a weapon?

Weapons brought violence, and it was a subject Our Savior would frown heavily upon. "I don't even have an alibi." Her eyelashes fluttered furiously, but the shining blue backdrop of her irises broke down the animosity in it all. "Edward, I- there really wasn't much time for thought. I wasn't thinking… I wasn't even settled with what I had done, I just did it. I… I…" Her mouth moved but no sounds came out.

Edward's lips seamed into one thing line. "Alice, did you use this handgun?" My heart pattered furiously in my chest- they had to know I had never been around a thief, let alone a murderer. And Ali, of all people? She couldn't harm a fly! Which I suppose made her the perfect killer.

Without a word, she untied her scarf and deep red indentations showed all around her throat. My eyes watered at the sight; who could ever hurt such a dainty little creature like Alice? She was so sweet and soft-spoken, with not one ounce of mean inside of her… well, until now. "These aren't the first marks, and definitely not the worst. They would not have been the last, if I had not been so… heroic." Her rock hard tone sent shivers down my throat, so I reached for the nearest chair and plopped down on it. "He was out with that girl again… I brought him here, right to her city so that I could see it for myself- so I could see that I wasn't making all of these things up in my head. But I should have known to never doubt a vision to vivid." She added in an afterthought. "He came back in between club hopping, and I confronted him."

The room began to spin all round me, and I could just see the red blood stain the white carpets beneath my feet. "Fredrick denied everything and… hit me, maybe even meant to choke the truth out of my brain." I shut my eyes against the pain of her blood-curdling screams and the help that never came for her. "I waited until he fell asleep before I went through his suitcase, and there this was- it's his father's, you know. Fredrick carries it around like he would know how to use it." Alice sniffed primly before sitting down on a couch across from me, but I could feel her eyes boring into my forehead. I couldn't even look at her, her deeds were making me sick to my stomach. "I considered making it painful for him, using the kitchenette's cutting wear, but I weighed the risk of him overpowering me. He always overpowered me, so I wasn't going to give him the chance." Bile rose in my throat, choking me and I was absolutely sure I would vomit the little fruit I ate that morning. She planned cutting him into pieces, or stabbing him to death? My father was the Chief of police, this didn't seem like one of those completely spontaneous crimes. Alice thought of it, long before this early morning. "And now I am free of him, brother. I've finally left him, Bella, and he wont ever lay another finger upon me."

"But this makes you a murderer." I blurted before I could control my words. I was very religious, and believed God was the ultimate parent to impress- what would happen when Alice met him at the pearly gates of on Judgment Day, and he didn't accept her soul to wander the streets of gold for eternity? Seeing as she had no mercy for Fredrick's deceased being, would He have any mercy upon her? I promised myself that I would pray for her soul every day and every night from here on, seeing as she would need every prayer she got.

"I know." There was so much agony and lack of shame on her face, but I found that I could not look away from her mesmerizing, now beady eyes. "And I will live with that for the rest of my life.

"No, Alice, you will live with that for much longer than the expanse of only one lifetime. For _eternity_, Alice." I spoke to her as if the knowledge was completely new to her- didn't she know killing was both a sin to God and crime to the state of New Jersey?

**A/N: PLOT TWIST!**

**I'm really loving this story right now! And just so you know, my vacation was fabulous! I'm hoping to write a piece about San Francisco, since I'm headed to spend a few days there in a week : ). **


	19. Good Fellas

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, the series, or anything affiliated with it. All belongs to Stephanie Meyer.**

**A/N: **

**REVIEW.**

"…and may we bow our heads in a humble prayer to Fredrick Jhiemer Dougherty. As our beloved ancestors before us proclaimed, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Father Kramer, whom I witnessed with my own eyes gambling in the cellar with Edward and Emmett the night before, spoke to us with sympathetic eyes and open arms. This was the fifth funeral service in a matter of months that I had attended in the name of the Cullencianos. Sometimes it felt like I was going to be next. "Our Father, who art in heaven…" And the crowd echoed him as he repeated the prayer three times. Edward squeezed my hand in a consoling gesture as the paw bearers walked the coffin right past us. Alice was in hysterical tears all the way until he was lowered into the ground and dirt was shoveled onto of him, but it wasn't there holding her shoulders in support like in Reynaldo's death. I wanted to play the part with her, to pretend that he did die in an automobile accident on his way back to the hotel, but I couldn't find it in me.

Alice was a wonderful actress. "Pardon, may I borrow you for a second?" Edward's business associate, James, whispered to him and stole a single glance at me. Edward made it a noticeable notion that he wouldn't bring security guards or any unholy weapon to a funeral, or any religious function that demanded no violent or destructive objects. I usually found this stipule of his, but as he kissed my cheek and whispered something lovely in my ear, I felt a depthless coldness run up my bare legs. There were no security men around and Ed was walking away… I began to question how I ever went out in public without a team before I met Edward. Then, before him I didn't feel the need to be protected.

"Make haste in marrying him." A voice popped up from beside me. I visibly jumped and looked over at the stoic-sounding female; as per the fashion, she wore a short, black veil attached to her cap that covered her upper face and she held her skinny hands behind her back, but made them visibly empty for me. "Fiancés die, not spouses." The redhead added cryptically.

I folded my arms with my hands gripping my upper arms; how did this woman know me? My short-sleeved dress did little to protect me from the midday breeze of Kentucky's late autumn, but Edward was serious about our image. He wore fancy, uncomfortable five piece suits and I wore tight dresses and painful high heels. "Who are you?" I asked sidelong, giving my eyes to the weeping crowd around me so that the two of us didn't look conspicuous.

"There's a grim reaper collecting engagement rings, Miss Swan. Don't wait until the springtime to wear your wedding band, no one wants a bride dead upon arrival." I sent her a look of shock and ridicule. Was she basically threatening me that if I didn't move the wedding up I'd be dead? I shook my head in thought- no one else but Edward and I knew the present date of our wedding- April 17th, I hadn't even told his mother yet! Then again… was she hinting at what I thought she was? It was as if she knew Alice killed Fredrick. No… she was just trying to scare me and possibly enjoy getting a rise out of me. No one could have known. Edward formulated a bulletproof alibi, murder story, cover-up- no one but the three of us knew what really happened.

"I have no clue what you're talking about." I replied, just as stoic. Who was this woman and what game was she playing? "What is it that you want from me?" I wasn't usually this rude or upfront with people, but this redhead was unrelenting.

"My name is Victoria Penne, and I want justice to be served." Victoria turned toward me assertively.

I swallowed nervously. "Ye- yes, you're, uh, you're right. That reckless driver should be brought to justice for what he did to Fredrick." Victoria could _not _have known the truth! Edward wouldn't have told a soul, Alice wouldn't snitch herself out, and I was too shy to think of what she did, let alone repeat it to another. The grim, knowing smile of hers sent shivers down my spine. "Might I ask your relation to Fredrick?"

Victoria Penne's thin eyebrows rose slightly. "My relation to him? I'm just and old friend of his. Funny, you didn't assume I had relations to Alice Cullenciano, the new widow." she spoke down at me as if she could see every card in my hand.

I pretended to be casual as I shrugged and looked away. "It's just that Alice and I are very close and she has never once mentioned a Victoria Penne, and we've never met a party before. What other explanation would there be? I don't know Fredrick's family or friends all that much, you could have been his mother and I wouldn't have recognized you." Did that sound like babbling? I just wanted to silently prove to her that I was scot-free and telling the truth… it felt so awful to be burdened with this kind of lie.

"Understandable." Victoria began with a jerk kind of smile. "But if you two are so close, why aren't you the one comforting her right now?" She gestured to a weeping Alice, whom was being rubbed, hugged, and talked to by her cousin, Adeline, and not me. Internally, I was stuttering. Why hadn't I thought of an excuse for that? It was weird that I wasn't at her feet trying to cheer her up and take away her sorrows. Before Fredrick came along, we were attached at the hip! "A little trouble in paradise, then?"

"Leave that alone!" I shot at her, pointing one lace gloved finger in her face. "What goes on between Alice and I is none of your concern, you're just a nosy little stranger." I spat out. "If you really must know, I refuse to coddle her in this time of need because that is not out relationship. We understand one another on a completely different level- when people are not looking and the media is not there to document it, we talk. About problems, gossip, politics, pains… we don't feel the need to dramatize everything that goes on during our sister-in-law interactions." I treated her as I would treat any normal paparazzi or magazine writer- they were mean, rude, nosey, unscrupulous and would do anything to get the story they wanted! "Put that in your article, Miss Penne." I ended softly and rudely turned my face away from her, back to the end of the ceremony.

A solitary chuckle sounded from her mouth. "Fiery, aren't you? I'm not a reporter, Miss Swan. I'm just a regular woman that works for the City of Rockville, an assistant for some sloppy old man that runs the electricity plants in these parts." Her answer made my resolve soften. She said she was regular, and not a reporter… if that was true, what was she doing talking and interrogating me? "Fredrick, as I have said before, was a very close friend of mine. And I have reason to urge you to marry Mr. Cullenciano promptly. Do your homework, Miss Swan, your sister-in-law is not at all the woman you see her to be."

"Food and drinks are provided at the Dougherty's residence, everyone is welcome to pay their last respects to Fredrick in the house he spent his last years in." Father Kramer announced in a jolly yet somber tone, abruptly ending our conversation. Victoria stepped away quickly, so quick in fact that when I turned around, I couldn't find one trace of her red hair in the moving crowd.

"Are you ready?" Edward's voice scared the living shit out of me, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when he put his arm around my waist. "What is the matter, Isabella? Are you not feeling well?" I stuttered like an idiot and was going to make up some kind of response when I saw Alice and Emmett approaching. Beneath the tears and heavy makeup she wore, I saw the malicious glint in her eyes. The masked sneer on her face directed at me, or was I just going crazy? My eyes did the seasons as I considered all sorts of scenarios in my head. Would Alice kill me for knowing her secret? She wouldn't have a fat chance in hell in getting away with killing her brother, and besides, he was the one covering for her! But I was just a witness, I was just the girlfriend of her brother! Not even his wife, just his fiancé… Victoria's early words came back to me. Everything she said now made sense. Alice killed her own fiancé, she would kill me in no time.

But then again, we were very close and had an unbreakable friendship. I was loyal to her, but was she questioning my loyalty now? She knew I was God fearing, and I doubted that she believed I wouldn't crumble under the pressure. "The limousines are ready." Emmett murmured and held Alice's elbow in a possessive gesture; all she had left were two older brothers, would she die that way? We walked together to the main limo, which was white and silver, and Alice made it a point to put Edward and Emmett on either side of her. Alice's in-laws piled into the opposite door, completely filling the car. I bit my lip in contemplation… was I the odd girl out?

"The next limo is empty, Bella, do you mind riding alone? It's just a short trip to the house, thirty minutes at most." Alice's serene smile beneath her veil made me nod in an odd, hesitant pattern. I didn't want to impose on the personal time she obviously needed to spend in the limo with them. Edward made a move to get out and join me, but Alice put her hand on his pant leg. To me, the hand looked awfully close to his crotch area, which must have been uncomfortable for her. "No, Eddie, stay here with me. Bella doesn't mind riding alone, right, Bella?" She turned to me with a hopeless look on her face. She needed the support right now, and even if I wasn't comfortable riding alone in a big, empty limousine, I did what I thought she'd want. I nodded.

"Yeah, Edward, it's fine. We'll meet at the house anyway." I sent him a reassuring smile before waving everyone off.

"Oh, use the limo with the license plate 202B5E, alright?" Alice urged. "I made the accommodations to your liking, I know how you enjoy your complimentary spirits." That statement made me pause in my smiling- the sentence went from kind and thoughtful to rude and embarrassing. Why would she say such a thing in front of his parents? She made me look like a cheap drunk! But I nodded and smiled either way. I searched every limo's license plate before meeting the last one at the end of the row. It was filled to the max and didn't match the license plate numbers Alice gave me, but I felt just awful when I noticed that all of the limousines were slowly pulling away until I was left alone in the middle of the sunny graveyard. But it wasn't like I could have just jumped into any awaiting limo! Alice said she made special reservations for me… I sighed heavily at my luck. There was no way to get a hold of any out here, how the hell was I going to get back on my own? And from the stories my dad told me about these Southern racists, the Ku Klux Klan would just eat me alive.

A model T Ford pulled up slowly and the passenger side window rolled down slowly. "You look like you could use a ride." The invasive redhead from earlier regarded me with a slow smirk.

"No, thank you." I replied stubbornly, paying little attention to the fact that there was another gentleman in her car. "My car should be arriving shortly." I lied easily. I didn't want her to think that she had any advantage over me, and I didn't want her to use it against me.

"That's a lie, Miss Swan, you know as well as I do that you have no ride. The last car left a few minutes ago, I am your only way back to the Dougherty's." Victoria eyed me carefully. "Come on, the ride is free of charge." She was baiting me, I could tell. But I had two options here- take her ride and possibly be killed or kidnapped, or refuse her offer and sleep under a willow tonight with the countless other dead people in this cemetery. "I will let you drive if you like." What was up with this woman? Why did me getting in the car matter so much? But I shook my head at her last offer, walking to the front of her door instead.

"I will take the ride, but I don't know how to get there." I admitted angrily.

"No worries." Victoria smiled almost evilly. "Hop in, we'll be there in no time."

**A/N: dun, dun, dun…. Kids, please don't get in the car with strangers. Even if you are stranded in a countryside cemetery.**

**Or if ghosts and zombies aren't your thing, go ahead and take the ride. **

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	20. Two Black Limousines

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, the series, or anything affiliated with it. All belongs to Stephanie Meyer.**

**A/N: **

**REVIEW.**

I kept my focus purely on my folded hands in my lap, refusing to give in to the want, and need, to look up and ask Victoria a thousand more questions. "Quiet much?" Victoria tried to maintain eye contact with my through the rearview mirror, but I only clutched the strap of my Chanel satchel tighter. They could have all of the money in my purse, if that's what they wanted. Did she want my bran new shoes and fitted cap, also? I took their ride because of my irrational fear of ghosts and dimly lit cemeteries. But I was not completely stupid, I knew they would want something in return for their graciousness. I stole a small glance at the driver of the automobile. He was modestly dressed with a coal-colored straight-billed cap and khaki, canvas-material slacks and top. It was odd seeing these modest, humbly-dressed people when I was so used to being surrounded by designer labels and expensive fabrics. It took getting used to, definitely. How would I survive the common world when Edward and I no longer stayed together? Would we really last, or was this merely an arrangement with a deadline? "You know, if I wanted to kill you or steal your current riches, I would have done it back there." The flaming red-haired woman sent me a sarcastic little smile. "So, don't worry yourself about that. We know exactly where you need to get to. Old Mill Road, right?" I nodded in agreement.

"How do you know so much?" It was a question I was dying to ask the first moment I met her. The two people in the front shared a small chuckle together before she simply shrugged, with no further explanation. "You're not going to answer my question?" I pressed lightly, not wanting to push my luck but just dying to know the truth.

Victoria tried to hide her smile behind pursed lips. "How about this- you answer a few of my questions, and I'll answer all of yours. Sound like a deal?" She was a hard bargainer, but what kind of questions could she really stick me with? I had done nothing wrong in this situation, regarding Reynaldo's and Fredrick's death or any of the Cullenciano mafia dealings. I was scot-free, clean as a whistle. So I nodded once more. "Alright, what do you know about Fredrick Dougherty's death?"

I swallowed loudly. "Uh… he was hit by an intoxicated driver, while he himself was under the influence." The lie slipped from my lips so smoothly, I scared myself. Was I really going to grave with someone else's burden upon my shoulders? These people were strangers, but I suddenly wanted to confide in them. Edward thought that there would be less investigation if it was noted that Fredrick was drinking, also, and he was right.

Victoria was not looking directly at me, just a bit sideways, but I knew that she didn't believe that. "Okay. Question number two, how do you know Alice Cullenciano and how long have you been in contact with her?"

"Well, um," I was nervous when talking to strangers, especially if someone like Edward or my father wasn't around, "I am to be married to her oldest brother in a matter of months." But she already knew that. Why was she making me go around in circles? "We met a sum of nine months ago. Our relationship is personal, wherein she visits often and we talk over the telephone frequently." Well, we used to. Recently, she wasn't accepting very many of my calls. Once or twice a week, at the most, but that was it. Her visits did not lessen, but weird things happened when she did visit. Things would go missing, I would notice the horse stables a mess, and sometimes… there would be more food in the refrigerator than before. I tried to write those things off in my head, but the matter always stayed in the forefront of my mind.

I was trying to stay patient and wait my turn. "And is it true that within these nine months of your meeting, both of her fiancés have turned up for dead in what one might call… freak accidents?" Victoria pinned me with a look.

At first, it seemed as if she were framing Alice for the crime… and now it sort of felt like she shifted the attention towards me. "No, they were not freak accidents. Fredrick was in an automobile accident and Reynaldo was murdered in cold blood- there is nothing "freak" about that." I tried to keep my tone in check, but it was hard to control my emotions when Victoria looked at me like that; as if I were some nasty criminal in her civil arrest. I wanted to scream at her, don't you know who my father is? But that would just raise suspicion, as if I were hiding something. Well, I _was _hiding something- something colossal, which left me sleepless most nights. I needed to hide that away from her, as best as I could. "Miss Kane, why are you interrogating me so?"

The red-head's electric blue eyes met her partners before she pinned them on me once more. "Miss Swan, only criminals are interrogated. You say you are guilty of no crime, is that right? Why would I be interrogating you if you were in fact, _not _a criminal?" She made my head spin with her loopy phrases and critical ways of twisting my words.

"Okay," I said angrily and sat up to see her more closely, "then whats with the questions?"

Victoria sent me a daring smirk and leaned in even closer, making our faces nearly touch. "They're pure curiosity, Miss Swan, nothing more. But I must ask, why does it bother you so much?"

I sent her the first glare of the day at being as evasive as this witch was. "Stop!" My resolve broke, seeing as she chose to spin me in a million small circles full of lies and exaggerations, and there was no turning back. "I have no answers that you so badly want, Miss Kane, you are dully beating a dead horse here! Thank you but no thank you for this ride, you can let me out now!" I wanted out of that damn car and I quite frankly didn't give a damn if I were to be wandering listlessly along these country roads alone, it was better than trying with my last breath to keep somebody else's secrets. When she only chuckled at me, I bit down on my lip harshly and fisted my hands into the thin fabric of my Donaghela black dress. "I am trying to keep my composure here-"

Victoria laughed harder at my statement. "Something has you all worked up, doesn't it? Lies do that to pretty little naïve things like you, Isabella."

"Oh, shut up already!" Yes, it was unladylike of me to be so rude to a near stranger… or anyone, that is. This woman was intentionally asking for it, though! "A man just died days ago and was settled into the ground this afternoon, Miss Kane, find it within your trashy customs and ill-ridden drive to harass those you find to be guilty of no crime… find some decency." I bit out at long last. Her face went from amused to angered to impassive within seconds.

Finally, she nodded solemnly to her partner driving in the front. "Alright, I see." Her male companion turned a slow corner and the front of the house suddenly appeared- every doubt I had about Edward and Alice and the Cullencianos all seemed to disappear. Victoria Kane was obviously the one I needed to worry about, no one else. How quickly my mind turned on near family really did disgust me, but to be completely fair I thought I had good reasoning. We pulled over on the next dusty block, seeing as this was mostly country (where the rich dwelled, obviously), before they both turned towards me. I waited patiently as she scribbled something down on a piece of paper and handed it to me before stepping out and helping me leave the back seat of her car. "Good day, Miss Swan."

I only nodded in her direction before straightening out my now wrinkled gown and fixing my purse to my side. My eyes were trained forward and I was ready to cross the solemn street until her voice halted me in my steps. "Oh, one last thing!" I shut my eyes closed tight and took a deep breath to calm myself. _Just entertain her this last moment, Bella, and you'll never have to see her awful self again, _I reminded myself. So I did what was best and swiveled around to meet her gaze.

"Yes?" I did my Lord awful best to keep my tone in check.

Her arm and head was hanging out of the window of the Ford, a smug little smile playing her orange lips. "Make sure you relay the message that Limousine 202B5E underwent some heavy repairs this noon- it seemed there was a piece of machine attached in an undercarriage." My brown eyes widened dramatically at her small (or perhaps quite _large_) tidbit of new information. Piece of machinery on the bottom of the car? What in the world did that have to do with me? Victoria settled her top visor precisely before smiling once more, this time much more serious. "A _ticking _piece of machinery, might I clarify. You are quite lucky the gentleman found it before anyone had the chance to get hurt by it." She gave me the memo as if it were the most common thing, but there was an all-knowing glint in her blue irises that I began to be able to read. She knew that car was for me, and she knew Alice made those arrangements. They drove off in the distance without another word before I even had the courage to try and stop them.

If what she said was even true, it didn't automatically mean anything. One, Victoria could possibly be lying to get me riled up. Two, anyone could have put that thing there to get to Edward Cullenciano's soon-to-be wife. Thirdly, I may not have even been the main target… it could have been a random act of inter-terrorism. Now I truly felt as though my head was spinning so fast it was deemed to fly right off of my shoulders. Honestly, I wanted to be in Edward's arm where he would reassure me everything was fine and I was safe. He made me feel safe, no matter all of the other less-than-pleasant emotions he called forth. I rushed across the street and ran through the acre of bright green grass until I revealed the new-looking door of the Victorian style house. My light knocks seemed to go unnoticed until finally I degraded myself to banging on the hardwood piece.

The door insistently swung open, a flushed Alice at the entrance. Her hazel opals considerably darkened as she took my well and normal state of dress, as if she were expecting me to greet her in a million little pieces. "Well, hello there." Why did I feel like she was greeting a guest, rather than welcoming her sister-in-law in her home? I mentally shook my head, trying to dispel all of my negtive afore thoughts. _This is the same old Alice that you know, you just have Victoria Kane in your head and shes poiening your thoughts! If there is any aloofness coming from Ali, it is only because she just lost her fiance. Act normal, Bella, Edward will notice any difference right off._ After my inner dialogue was finished, I pushed forward and enveloped her in a loving hug.

Within a few odd seconds, she hugged me back and then slowly separated herself. There was a bulletproof smile on her face as she ushered me in and closed and locked the door behind me. "Where is Edward?" My words made her lips twitch ever so lightly.

But then the hesitation was gone, just like that! "Oh, Edward? I think he's in the Billiards' Room, having a word with Freddie's father- actually, I don't know where that man is off to." She replied trivially, as if she had no clue who Edward was in the first place. "Would you like me to fix you a drink while I prepare the Hors d'oeuvres?" The thought of Alice, or anyone I did not trust one hundred percent, preparing any food or drink of mine made my skin crawl. Who did I trust these days? I don't suppose I trusted anyone anymore, this lifestyle was just awful.

"No!" I answered a little testily, for she looked at me as if I had just grown three heads. "I mean, thank you, Alice- but I have to decline. My stomach has been unsettled all day, a drink will surely make me ill." Doctoring up my blunder the best I could, I turned on my heel and went to the finger food table to pick at crackers and expensive cheeses. This was an eventful day and I only longed to be back in my hometown of Chicago, where I knew I was safe in mine and Edward's country-city border home. "Goodbye, Atlantic City." I muttered under my breath.

"What was that, dear?" Edward asked playfully into my ear, his body heat pressed against my back.

I gasped at being surprised so vastly. "Edward! You frightened me." I put a hand to my forehead and turned towards him with a ghastly look. But one look at him made my heartbeat go from the wing flutter of a hummingbird to a calm and steady beat, just how I liked to be. My feet went accordingly to him and I hugged his shoulders in an attempt to find some solace for that type of day I had. Looking back ten months ago, I would have never once imagined that Edward would be the one I ran to when I was not feeling safe in my rose-tinted world. Now, he was the only thing that actually seemed to make sense anymore. "I'm not feeling well, where were you?"

Edward sent me an odd look when we finally separated. "You act as if we didn't see one another twenty minutes ago." He must have fed off of my shocked face, because he intertwined our fingers in a loving gesture I wasn't all that interested in. Had it really only been twenty minutes since we last saw one another? It really didn't seem that short of a period. "We are the destined love birds, then? Isabella," the way his Italian accent slid over my name did things to me, "I thought you promised that we weren't going to let our affectionate tendacnies get in the way of daily chores such as driving?" His tone was playful and his beautiful eyes danced across my face, searching for an answer.

I could only muster a small smile. "Sure, Edward, I just cant get enough of your presence."

"But what is this about you not feeling well?" My fiancé's tone got serious at this.

Why had I said that? It was the truth, yes, but I couldn't exactly explain why my stomach felt as if it were doing cartwheels everywhere. "That was nothing, truly." I placed a chaste kiss on his lips before beckoning him to the double French doors that led out to an empty balcony. "Now that you're here, of course, but I thought you would take much longer to console Fredrick's dad." My fiancé wasn't exactly the mushiest man on Earth, but he did have his compassionate moments that made me fall for his charm all over again.

His quirk of lips and twist of his neck confused me. "I wasn't consoling anyone- Mr. Dougherty retired to his Study as soon as we stepped foot in his home. Nearly drove Alice into tears, but I understand the man's need for privacy. Sometimes the best healing one can do is purely alone, not in a room full of people." I nodded accordingly as he idly played with the curly ends of my brown hair. "You should have inquired Alice with my whereabouts, she knew I was with my mother in the dining room."

Edward kissed behind my ear in multiples. "Really?" I pushed aside my attraction for his ministrations long enough to ask.

He pulled away with a drawn-out sigh, resting his elbows on the balcony's balustrades as he looked me over. "Truly, Isabella. Are you positive that you aren't still under the weather? You seem… just plainly frazzled." My mouth opened to spill all of today's blunders, run-ins, and oddities, but the French doors flew open before I even had an inkling of a chance to do so.

"There you two are! Mother thought the new love birds had run off." Alice's steel eyes found us.

**End Chapter-**

**DUN, DUN, DUN…**


	21. My Baby Don't Want To Know

**A/N: **

**Inspiration for this chapter came from**** "Brukpocket Lament" by The Heavy.**

**LISTEN TO THIS SONG WHILE YOU READ. It completely sets the mood!**

Against my wish and want, we stayed in Atlantic City for one more day longer than we should have. What did Edward not understand about my feelings for this place? Not only was this the area that Alice just lost her fiancé in, but also where a very nosey red-headed woman was basically tailing me around. Not that I had actually seen the woman or her accomplice, but I could constantly feel their eyes on my being.

We went out for breakfast in _China Lanternis _downtown, I could feel them. Mrs. Cullenciano invited me to come along as she browsed the boutique strip on 34th street, I swore footsteps mirrored my own to the tee. Edward and I shared drinks in the lobby of our hotel last night, and her mane of red locks exited the door as soon as we stepped in. in fear of arousing Edward's very perceptive curiosity, I fought the urge to look back or follow the woman. Instead, I tucked the strap of my purse in and leaned into the crook of his elbow as he showed me the way to the open bar.

But that was last night, when we could still stand the sight of each other. Perhaps it was the drunken atmosphere, or the fact that we had been in Atlantic City for the last two weeks which was out of my limit and far past Edward's patience, but it didn't exactly matter when it came down to it. Between Edward and myself, things got intense and heavy very easily. "Stop looking at that man." Edward chastisized me harshly, pressing his knee into my inner thigh pointedly. We sat on the high stools beside each other, but it was custom for a woman to face her man, and I was always one for custom. The nude piece I wore accentuated my form so nicely that even I had trouble not catching a glimpse of myself in the numerous mirrors in the cocktail lounge. It was a radical piece- the fabric wasn't your average cotton or polyester, it was almost a patent leather, shiny and the shade of skin. The dress definitely fit like a second piece of skin; but hey, this was Atlantic City! The East Coast's version of Las Vegas, some said.

I bought this dress while on a shopping day with Rosalie in mid-town Chicago, from a dress mistress on Louis Avenue- she explained that the dress was going to be _haute couture _any day. "Why?" I challenged his look with a piercing glare of my own. I dared him by shimming myself farther from his space and closer to the man on my other side- he loved to stare at me when I dressed for the occasion, but couldn't find it within himself to share my attention. It wasn't as though I planned on leaving the car with any of these men, I was solely devoted to Edward, but I refused to give into the chauvinistic man that he was being. My knees opened a little wider now that we were further away, and some of my bare thigh was now accessible to the eye.

My fiancé pursed his lips in an angered manner and threw back his jet black head of hair, finishing his dry scotch in one gulp before peering back at me. Silently, he called the bartender for another drink and the man attended to Edward almost immediately. "What is that you're wearing anyway? Cannot be Chanel, surely- when you wear her fabric, you're covered in a sophisticated, humble manner." The nasty look that went with his words made me want to choke him with his own _Caraceni _tie. Edward a mix between Italian and American, and the mixture was very evident in his fashion. He latched onto the zoot suit fad that currently rose to fame, but stayed with the Italian look of Caraceni, a man of utmost style and fashion with men accessories. From the jewelry to the ties to shoes Edward wore, he was making a statement. Without a care to the world about being accepted or looked upon nicely, my fiancé wore what he wanted and never cared about the price.

My mother had always called this style the "Italian look of lovers", which was the impeccable fabrics of Italy with the Western influence of American culture. As much as I respected her for giving me a keen eye to fashion, I long left the ankle-length church girl gowns with billowy skirts and ruffled tops. Fabrics clung to skin, accessories hung from different places than just the neck, heels were higher… I internally smiled at my rant. I was at the height of popularized fashion, and I was in a situation where price tags meant so little that I forget to glance at them. "It's a new designer." I flourished him with a devilish little smirk as I leant one elbow on the bar and swirled my glass of whiskey and Coke in tiny circles, trying my best to tantalize him rather than make a fool out of myself. "His name is Dior, Christian."

Edward's eyebrow rose in speculation. "_His_?" he parroted.

I nodded with a smile. "It was a relative of his that I bought it from. She says he's going to be the mogul of the fashion world next autumn when his designs are showcased in Milan and Paris." I gushed softly and took another long sip. He was so used to me walking around in Chanel, Ann Klein, Bonnie Cashin, Vera Maxwell… he had to realize that the movement of the "New Look" was going to sweep Chicago by storm, and with it I would be on the receiving end. "I look forward to purchasing more pieces as this when he starts his pioneering." I shrugged softly at the incredulous look on his face.

"I don't see things as you do currently, Bella. The dress… your attire is too loud and extravagant, it's going to attract all sorts of unwanted attention." His green eyes trailed down my exposed collarbone and went down to the tight fabric around my hip bones. Just to make it completely interesting, I was posh as to slip from the bar stool and stood between his knees, a nearly empty drink in my hand.

"But is this not what you wanted? A fiery, rule-breaking mob wife with diamonds raining from her fingers and wrists and ears?" Our eyes connected and I was so sure he was going to pounce forward and attack my mouth with his, so when he didn't, I put my drink down with a tired clank and slid my hands up his legs and stopped mid-thigh. "I thought you liked me in exposing pieces? Where my skin is sinning enough to make my mother cry and my legs are absolutely begging to be thrown apart?" This was a dangerous game, I knew that, but the sexy words slipped from my mouth before I could help it. "Or what of the way my shoes fit as I prance about- don't they shape my backside the way you love so?" It was common knowledge that the tightness when walking in heels made the seeming shape of the butt different, and Edward once commented his liking to me.

I knew it wasn't just other men he was worried about, it was the police as well. He didn't like us to be too flashy or too crowd-drawing when we went places outside of Chicago; he really didn't even like me to wear my furs or tall high heels when we were out. But when we were in Chicago… he owned that city, we wore and did anything and everything we wanted to. When I zipped up the side of this dress back in the hotel room, I knew it was going to start a fight between us, but I just couldn't smother my rebellious side for tonight. "No, Bella, this outfit doesn't do any of those things." Edward finished his drink and tossed it aside, perhaps evening cracking the thick glass on its way; we were in a full bar, with dozens of high class alcoholic idiots milling about and loud blues playing in a live band across the way. Our scene went unnoticed, or so I thought.

His hands traveled to my waist then over my thick hips until finally finding their way to each side of my half-exposed thighs. We never touched like this in public, it was just atrocious! But I didn't dare move my hands, even if they were so near his bulging crotch area, but the redness in my cheeks was unmistaken. This was utterly embarrassing now. "Then tell me, Edwardo Cullenciano," I used his full name as I leaned in and bit at my lower lip, "what does this outfit do?"

He seemed thoroughly amused at my drunken vixen coming out to play. "It is not what your clothes _do_, it is what they say." My finished drink sloshed crazily inside of my head, and the flute of champagne earlier in my room I downed before meeting Edward downstairs did nothing to help me. But I smiled through the slight pain and confusion it put me under and took a harder grip on his thighs.

"Oh, yes?" One of my manicured eyebrows rose at his words; so, he knew everything about me, did he? Just because he knew _one _common designer's name didn't put a whole lot of fashion respect above his head! Everyone knew Coco Chanel. I titled my head at him. "And what are they saying?

Before I knew it, he leaned in and had my lips beneath his in a crushing kiss. The man from earlier was forgotten, seeing as I only used him to ploy Edward in a small game of innocent cat and mouse. And it wasn't like the man a table away even held a candle to my fiancé… Edward was sometimes from another Universe with the things he said and did to and for me. So, this was what my clothes said to him? I smiled into the kiss and couldn't help the cocky smirk that overtook my features when he breathlessly separated from me. "It says you are a _whore_." The words bit at me like a spiteful bitch in heat- that one small sentence hit me like a bucket of cold water on a winter day. My eyes darted his darkened ones, and they dared me to say something wretched back at him. My hand itched to slap this man across his face as I contemplated all of the mean things I could say, all of the dramatic things I could do. But then I felt my eyes start to build up a few tears, and I just plainly refused to cry in front of him.

So I snatched my purse from the counter and stepped away. "I'll be in the powder room, accentuating to the whore look you were so fond of last night." Was my only response. I stomped away and just barely made it to the restroom in time for the tears to start rolling down my face. I slammed my dainty fist against the rose-printed wallpaper along the walls, making a loud frustrated noise. Everything I wore was for him, how dare he call me a whore? These jewels were heavy, the dress was tight, the shoes were painful… did he truly believe that I walked around with all of these things for strangers? I did it for him, but he wouldn't ever understand that, would he? After a few deep breaths and a five minute fix-up to my face makeup, I was ready for war in my armor once again. But as I stepped out of the Ladies' Room, I noticed Edward's back to me from the bar. What if… just what if I could prove a point to him without yelling or hitting him? My mind raced as I looked around the room, catching the tall stranger's brown eyes once more.

I caught his attention when I first walked in with Edward, but I paid so little mind to him because Edward seemed hell-bent on bringing him up every five seconds. Without another thought, I strode to his lonely table and settled my fingers along his suited arm. "Would you like to dance, sir? I don't swing, but I'm sure a slow blues will do." I smiled at the man and he smiled back, which was friendly enough.

"Neither do I, M'am. I would love to care for you hand in a dance." His suave voice and smooth hands unsettled me in just the slightest- I had no doubt he was a pampered pretty boy, whom was very use to dazzling women out of their panties. But those details didn't matter, I wasn't exactly looking to take him back to my room that night. We were on the dance floor at once and a new, more intense blues song immediately played. The male singer had a deep, throaty baritone as he sang about the death of a man that couldn't live without his woman's love; it was so befitting in that moment.

_I tried to love her _

_Best that I could._

_I tried to live like _

_A good man should._

_I tried too hard_

_But where did I go?_

_My baby don't want to know._

I closed my eyes for a moment too long, because the man holding me to his body leaned in from an impromptu kiss that sent me in a frenzy- my hands went to his shoulders to try and tear his mouth from mine. It was all done in vain, but a pair of rough hands snatched me from my place beside this man all too soon, sending me into another state of shock. Edward's orbs were deadly as they processed what just happened, and my forearm felt like it was going to break under his tight grasp. "Edward!" I screamed out in agony, not being able to take the pain anymore.

"Let go of her-" My dancing partner said aloud and reached for my arm, but Edward shoved him back with only one movement.

"What the fuck were you thinking?" My soon-to-be-husband roared like an inflamed, wild animal atop his greatest mountain. His chest was heaving up and down like the madman he was, but I trained my eyes to stay dead and set in stone. I was _not _going to let him have the satisfaction of seeing me cry- he would not see that weakness of mine, especially not in front of all of these people!

With all emotionality gone, I yanked my arm from his grasp. I surprised myself when I became free of his hold and only teetered slightly on my tall heels, steadying myself instantly to peer up at him. "Think of the kind of woman I would be if I allowed my clothes to speak before my own lips did?" I threw his own words back at him, hoping he would die choking on them. "You said I was a whore, so I figured it was about time I acted on one of those actions that made a woman just that sort of _character_." I spat the word "character" out like a bad taste; just what did a Cullenciano know about character? He had no moral hold over my anymore, I couldn't give a damn what he thought my clothes said or _didn't _say for that matter.

"You're drunk on your own poison." Edward said evenly, the third wheel completely forgotten at this point.

"And you get high on your own supply." I replied with malice dripping from every word. It was time to start refusing his words of my love of alcohol to pierce me so hard, he needed to have things thrown back at him for a change! I wasn't a complete society woman of an idiot; I knew that he dipped into the cocaine he sold and distributed on the streets of Illinois. It was the kind of drug that rich men flew high on, and whether or not God would ever allow it, we let these men destroy and kill themselves this way.

He pounced on me and grabbed me by my flowy brown hair, yanking it from behind as to not attract too much attention. "Shut this bullshit up, Isabella. You're going to say too much that your pretty mouth cant make up for." Edward whispered threateningly. "So close your fucking mouth already." Every word meant another tug at my hair, and I felt a few strands being ripped out. My eyes leaked painful tears as I felt both humiliated and used in front of some of these spectators- he was not going to disrespect and manhandle me in public like this! I was not a rag doll or a punching bag, I was a human being that deserved to be treated like the princess he said I would be in the beginning.

Just when he thought I had fully submitted to his touch, I snatched at an empty glass on the table; I could not look away from him, he didn't allow it. But I knew exactly how I was going to strike him, I could feel it. "Not this time." I murmured softly as I kept his eyes with mine- a wave of guarded curiosity passed his face as he mulled over my words. The crowd of sweaty dancers were going past us as the band was going to take their five minute break, so I used this to my advantage and swung the cup around to strike him right against his nose. He let out a painful howl and yanked his hands from out of my hair so fast that he left with a fistful of hair. I cried out in agony but knew this was my escape, so I took it. With my purse in hand I ran from the cocktail lounge and up the stairs to my room, never even sparing one glance back.

I knew exactly what I was going for.

Alice's Chanel handbag, which was tucked in-between my shoes boxes.

**A/N:**

**Hmmmm, she wants the handbag?**

**Wonder what she needs it for.**


	22. Fatal Attraction Is Common

**A/N:**

**ATTENTION EVERYONE:**

**You can now find me on FACEBOOK. There you can see new banners, early updates, and more easily interact with me as the writer. Also, "LIKE" it please and thank you! It is under "Miss Nae Malfoy".**

I was blind and drunk as I ran through our hotel suite, knocking over knick knacks and the numerous lamps posted around the room in my way. He was always faster than me, I knew he'd be up here any minute wanting an explanation for my actions as well as a punishment for my words; I was tired of being afraid of what he was capable of, even if I did have unfaltering feelings for him. Edward was so enigmatic; it was a chore to be away from him and against what he was. But when it came down to the treatment of me, his fiancé, I had to learn how to put my foot down- else he'd run right over me! Not to mention the fact that I was scared out of my mind… my first thought when I stepped in was to go straight for Alice's handbag, and so I went with my gut instinct and tore through my walk-in closet. So far Edward hadn't cared enough to dispose of the weapon yet, which I found slightly suspicious and perhaps even foolish, but it sure came in handy for moments like these.

With my fingers wrapped tightly around the chunk of metal, I ran back into the main room and pointed the gun right at the front door; I didn't want to kill a man, I wasn't a murderer. But I didn't want to die, either. The things Victoria told me swam in my head and I felt like some insane, mental ward patient as I physically shook my head to dispel of her voice. Was Edward trying to kill me? Was Alice trying to kill me? Were they both in an evil plan to get rid of me, just as Fredrick and Reynaldo were disposed of? Sure, I had nowhere else to go, but I decided right here was not the place for me. I was too close to Alice and her near madness!

When the door flew open and the madman I called my loving fiancé came bursting through, my finger automatically went in the slot of the trigger. It stopped him in his motions, both of his pensive eyes trained solely on me. "Isabella…" I could hear the slight hesitation in his voice, but there was a lack of fear present that rocked me to the core. Why wasn't he on his knees or begging for another chance at life? Was it because he thought I was too in love with him to ever do it? Or was it the fact that he knew I didn't have the heart nor the stomach to shed another's blood? "Put that gun down."

A stupid, juvenile part of me wanted to do exactly as he said- but I smothered it, just as I did earlier, and swallowed loudly. "No." I rasped out.

"Isabella, baby, I'm only saying this for your own safety. Put the gun down." His voice was hard like iron, even if he had the softest look on his face. "Your fingerprints are all over a murder weapon." And as he said this, my eyes dropped to the revolver in my hand; he was precisely right on that, I was touching all over this thing when it had just been used to kill a man the week before. Edward took full advantage of my distraction and had me in his tight grasp within the moment, twisting my arm back until I cried out in utter pain. The heavy gun fell from my fingertips in no time and with it, gone was my only way out of this situation. Tear drops full of fear and regret filled my eyes and slipped down my done up face. "Did you truly believe you had the balls to pull that trigger?" He snarled at me, letting go of my almost broken arm only to dig his fingers into the nape of my neck. He was able to control my head any which way he wanted and his other hand was locked around my waist. Edward Cullenciano had me just how he wanted me, locked up in his grasp.

"You can't keep doing this to me!" I screamed in his face, pushing against the tanned arms that held me close to him.

"Isabella, I do what I want whenever I please." His growl in reply sent shivers down my spine, and not the pleasurable ones either. "Why don't you ever do what I say? We could have had a very pleasant evening together." Edward hissed at me as he backed us up into a corner, my head bumping the crème colored wall harshly. "But instead, you wear _this_ in pure spite against my wishes. And you share a dance with a random stranger in the dark of the night, to swing music." I gulped as the cards stacked against me; sure, I did have some fault for the way the night turned out, but he was the evil one. If he were like any other regular human being, perhaps we could have talked things out instead of these desperate measures! "Aren't you a Christian, some kind of woman of God? What would God Almighty think of you now, Isabella? Cheating, lying, and defiling your body, intentions of causing harm to others, profane language, fornicating before marriage… you've become quite the fast one." I flew my hands about, slapping his face and neck and kicking at every nether region he owned.

"You have degraded and soiled me!" For the first time in my life, I didn't recognize my own voice. "You are the reason for my current insanity, Edward; you're the one that separated me from my god forsaken parents! You gave my father an offer you _knew_ he would not be able to refuse and you ripped me right from everything I knew!" I screamed loudly, not caring if I woke up the whole damn hotel with my tone. "You did this to me, you made me this way! It's _your_ fault, it's _your_ fault, it's all _your_ fault!" More traitorous, hot tears fell from my wide open opals. My chest was heaving up and down in labored breathing, but there was this red haze filling what used to be a crystal clear gaze; I was beyond angry with this man I thought I loved so much, I was infuriated! I wanted to tear this god-like creature to shreds with my bare hands, as barbaric as that sounded.

"You say that I have made you this way? So that would mean that if I were parted from the situation, you would be free to convert back to your old, prudish ways?" My heart skipped plenty of beats as I unwillingly leaned into him, hanging on every last word that slipped from that delicate mouth. One moment I hated his guts, the next I thought his mouth was delicate? It was no wonder he was giving me this speech, the one that fellas gave to their ladies they were bored of… this was what my father warned me about, the men that loved women and left them. I fought the urge to cover his mouth with my hand because, no matter what he said, it was the true way he felt. My lips refused to move in fear of my words worsening the rapidly declining situation. "If this is true…" Edward released me from his prison-like grasp and took a small, miniscule step back, "then I will leave and never look back."

The weakest part of me screamed _please don't leave me!_ But I sucked it up and looked at him with my head held high; I pushed my now messy hair back and gestured to my ring finger before tugging at the silver cluster of diamonds. The ring came off surprisingly easy and it was all too soon when it was free from my lonely digit- his dark eyes watched my every move, silently daring me to continue on with my dramatic charade. I felt drunk and stupid standing before him, both of us completely disheveled and the entire hotel suite a mess, but this was our breaking point and there was no turning back. "Well, Mr. Cullenciano," With one hand I fixed the strap of my dress and with the other I dangled the rock in front of him, "I hope you didn't expect me to start begging." Every single word felt heavy and slurred as I spoke. "Take your ring and give it to some other unsuspecting lady. May God be with her." I sneered.

Edwards eyes went up in flames as he snatched the very expensive piece of jewlry from my fingertips. "Fine by me, Isabella. You should not fancy yourself the only goomah." For everyone, there is that one word or action that drives us mad- that takes us from calm to insane in five seconds. And that word, along with "uptown", was the epitome of my madness. I wasnt even truely aware of what I was doing, I only knew that I wanted his face smashed in the ground any way I could. Goomah was the italian word for misstress, and I was anything but a misstress to him! I was his loyal girlfreind, lover, friend, and fiance!

I picked up the solid, procelain lamp from my side and swung it at him, catching the right side of his forehead; blood oozed out immediately and I was sick to my stomach as soon as the smell hit me. Edward bore his teeth at me and hissed in pain as he touched at the wound atop his head- hell, he rightly deserved it! But instead of reaching over and slapping me like i thought he would, he instead turned around and left out of the open door. My hands shook with the amount of adrenaline I felt. Why werent we fighting it out like the rest of our rows? It almost disappointed me that he wasnt going to finish what he started.

In retrospect, I could have just slinked away and allowed him his time and space from me. But it wasnt that easy; I loved him, I wanted him to know that before he started to consider our future from here on. So I ran down the hall after him, ignoring my aching feet in these ridiculous heels. He was storming off in the distance, hands clenched in fists, and I caught just a glimpse of his wild hair before I saw him duck toawrds an elevator shaft. I willed my feet to run faster than ever before as i rouned the corner and stopped infront of him, putting my foot out to stop the door before it closed. There was a caddy present, offering cups of refreshing water and small finger foods, but I cared very little for him as he offered me an object. "Edward, please dont leave like that! We-"

"M'am, would you like a beverage? Water is vital to stay refrshed during these late summer nights-" The caddy was irritating the hell out of me so I snatched the cup of water from his hands and turned back to my ex-fiance sharply.

"We have so much to talk about, Edward-" I started to explain once more.

"We have nothing further to discuss!" He roared back.

"Yes, dammit, we do! I feel bad for what I did and I'm sorry, but don't leave me like this!" I know I sounded desperate, but it was the way I felt. Of course I had emergency funds in an account for precautionaries, but it wasn't money I was worried over. It was my heart, it was my very peice of mind that I was striving tooth and nail for. He couldn't leave me like this, I would have never left him.

"You said it your very self, Isabella, we are through. Your soul will have a fighting chance of being saved now- run while you can." Edward was stonewalling me, and I suppose I should have expected his bitter behavior when I handed over the ring. But honestly, we both did things we didn't mean when we were angry.

I took a deep, calming breath in. "I'm sorry, Edward, let's just go back to the hotel room and-"

Again, he cut me off. "There is nothing to speak on, we mean nothing to each other, and you no longer have the priveledge of wasting my time gandering on the likes of a situation I could give less than two shits about." His hurtful words hit me like fists, so strongly I felt the emotional blows that I had to take a few steps back. Edward allowed me to embarass myself infront of a hallway of hotel guests and people waiting to step onto the elevator shift, only to publicy reject and humiliate me. Never before had I followed a man and confessed my feelings, and never would I do something so stupid and rash again.

"Fuck you, Edward Cullenciano." I screamed melodramaticaly, but it was meant with so much vigor. The word "fuck" left a nasty taste in my mouth and the way he looked at me when I said it made me shrivel back in recoil; surprise and anger adornished his features, but it wasn't enough for me. I felt like taking off one of my high heels and tossing it right at his head, or perhaps I could find salt somwhere and rub it in his wound?

I didn't have time to think of anymore toture ideas when the elevator door began to slowly close. But before it fully eclipsed, I angrily chucked the cup of water at him. With an evil smirk, I hoped that it ruined his nice suit and no one woman would dare to appraoch him in soiled attire. But I shook my head in defeat as I slumped against the wall of the now empty hallway- no woman was crazy enough to deny Edward's company, he was gorgeous and insightful at first. He was every girl's fantasy, what they thought they wanted out of a man for the rest of their lives. _Look at me now_, an angry voice inside of my screamed. This was what my fantasy man left for me... a lonely, empty vessel where my bubbly manner and socialite smile used to reside. Without thinking of manners or ettiquitte, I leant over and unbuckled the ankle straps of my shoes and slung them along my fingers as I slumped down lower.

The ignorant caddy approached me once more, attempting to push his stale items on me but I waved him away with a nonchalant shrug and sneer to boot. I just sat there, backed up against the wall, considering all of the events that led up to this big blowout and began to envision my future as it would be alone.

It just seemed... lonely.


	23. Take You To The Promised Lands

**A/N: For all of my lovely followers. The lyrics I used are from "Time of the Season" by The Zombies, a groovy 1968 song. **

"…oh, that is just terrible to hear." Alice's sympathetic tone was genuine enough as she patiently listened to my weekly calls; each Wednesday I called, I would hope beyond hope that Edward was in the background. But I was left empty-handed every time. "But perhaps this is what God has in his plans." She added cautiously, playing on my love and faith in Our Savior. It wasn't God's plan to separate us, that was just preposterous of her to conjure! I prayed day and night that my ex-fiancé would pick up the telephone and call me up- my knees would beg for mercy but I was relentless. "He hasn't returned any of your phone calls or answered any of your messages, so that is obviously a sign." I faltered for a minute at her revelation. Had I told her about sending those disgustingly desperate pleas for a second chance? Surely I didn't, I hadn't told a soul about them! It was only Edward that knew, and perhaps his secretary… oh, dear. A blush stained my face.

Edward probably had a field day with those notes, bragging about his superiority over me in the relationship. By now, his entire family could have known about our situation and my desperate act to get him back! "What do you mean by that?" I hated the defensive tone I was took, but I honestly couldn't help it. Alice was insinuating that _this _was the end, that he and I were finished forever.

"Well, nothing bad." Ali clarified quickly. "Bella, you two have been split up for two months now. Maybe it's time to move on and find another fella." I leaned my elbow on the maple coffee table beside my chair, covering my tear-stricken face with one hand and holding the heavy receiver to my ear with the other. I really wished I could move on, but actions were harder than spoken word. It was easy to say "I've moved on" but in practice it was too difficult to even begin. Edward and I made so many plans for the future; we turned a house into a home, he took the only god-given virtue I had- my virginity! He was the man I was meant to marry, Edward was _it _for me. No one else. "Why won't you? My brother gave you the countryside home, the Model T, all of your jewelry and furs… you have everything, Bella. You can start a new life anywhere you'd like, or rewrite your current one."

My eyebrows drew together in a wave of anger I no longer knew I was capable of; for an excess of eight weeks I pouted in solitary and cried my poor eyes out. Pictures of us and memorabilia littered the hallways and rooms of this place… I was slowly dying of suffocation in my own house. But Alice was suppose to be my best friend, the one that knew me inside and out better than anyone else in this world! I wanted to unload this on my cousin, Rosa, but it just wasn't fair of me. From what Ali leaked, her relatiosnship with Emmett was blossoming finely wherein he spent almost all of his time in the innercity of Chicago with her and not at work. I refused to be a damper on her happiness because she definitely deserved it. "I can't walk away from this, Ali."

"Well why not?" She spat out at long last, as if she had been holding it in all along. My eyes watered dangerously at the thought that the last person that believed in our relationship no longer did. "He's got on with his life, that's what these wiseguys do. Why can't you?"

"Because I love him!" I cried angrily. Edward was the last person I had, besides distant family and friends from what I considered my past life, and now that he was gone I felt like I had no one. I didn't eat, sleep, or even fully function like I had just months before… I was just here waiting for him to return, like some sordid, medieval damsel in distress awaited her knight in shining armor. As far as Alice was concerned, we were absolutely done for and all waiting on my part was just a waste of breath.

She let out a lengthy sigh and spoke closer to the receiver, as if she were trying to hide our conversation from the rest of the world. "Look, Bella, I'm only telling you this because we're friends… Edward is seeing another lass, buts he's playing it very careful because of the unwanted press it'd bring. You know, because technically the social circles of Chicago still think you two are engaged. That's all I'm gonna say." Her hushed tone and secretive manner made me feel dirty and desperate for even listening in.

But I couldn't deny that it broke my god damn heart to hear it. Another woman… what did she look like? Did she come from good breeding? Was she an Italian, from another prominent mafia-tied family as well? "He's going around with someone else?" I sounded pathetic to even my own ears, but all I could do was wipe the hot tears away and pay closer attention. My pearl colored nails dug into the tweed fabric of my skirt suit; I had to open and close my eyes a few times to shake off the sudden fatigue I was feeling. It was as though my entire world was falling apart in these few minutes. "Who is she? What's her name? What does she look like?" I choked back a sob as I pondered on my own questions, which were out of my mouth before I even had the chance to stop them. All I could see was Edward holding onto some beauty queen _gumad_, a drink in his hand and a long smirk on his face as they enjoyed the view of the French Riviera together.

"Bella… he's moved on by seeing another woman. That's all I can tell you, it's all you need to know." My ex sister-in-law stressed the last part once more. I wiped my runny nose with the bunched up tissue in my hand and gripped the khaki colored phone tighter.

"Don't feed me that bullshit! You said you were my friend- friends tell friends the truth, the whole truth. Don't hold anything back, I need to know." I would go crazy trying to guess the gory details all on my own if she decided it was suddenly against her morals to gossip about family. For some stupid reason, I almost thoroughly convinced myself that once I heard the entire truth, I would feel much better. That was very, _very _stupid of me.

"Are you for certain?" This was pure torture, and she knew it. "Eddie's been seeing her for a few weeks, and he's confided in me that he's _real _sweet on her. She's tall, leggy with dark, blonde hair… comes from a family we've been long-time friends with since my dad was kid." I let out a tortured cry- she was perfect, everything that I wasn't. It would have been easier to hear she was some stupid chorus girl for Broadway or a lowly barmaid from town. No, she _had _to be a ritzy blonde girl from an equally important family as the Cullencianos! "My mom's buzzing about a soon wedding; I'm guessing because all of your wedding stuff was already paid for and such." Alice was babbling on like we were talking about a gossip topic on the Sunday paper, not the ruins and shambles that were currently pieces together as my life. I wanted to turn over and die, and if the ground spontaneously opened up and swallowed me whole I would not mind it one bit. Not only was she taking my man, but she was possibly obtaining my dream wedding and my spot in Edward's life.

"They're getting married." I stated in a robotic manner, feeling like such a fool.

"Nothing's official." She piped up.

"_They're getting married." _I parroted my earlier words. Edward had moved forward in a big way, and I was suddenly faced with a challenge that I hadn't really considered on a serious note. I could either rush to him and prove my undying love, or I could walk away forever and make the best of the rest of my life. I could get out of Chicago, start a small boutique out of the country if I wanted to! There was enough money in my old account to make the next move in my life, I just had to decide what it was going to be.

A sitcom came on the television that night, one with too much drama and too little comedy for my liking; it was about a husband wife, dealing with the trials and tribulations of everyday life as a couple. They were two against the world always, no matter the obstacle life threw their way. It struck a painful cord within me, causing my brain to shut right off and another, more primal part of me to take over. Looking back, I hated watching my self spiral right out of control but it was one of those right of passages that was more than necessary. Almost akin to pages right out of the Bible, I had to feel the most horrendous pain in my life in order to move right past this obstacle in life- I had to completely surrender my body, mind, and soul to a rather insane aspect within me.

It was a part of my being that I hadn't even known existed. Hidden deep within myself, an animalistic woman arose from what seemed like the depths of an unholy to wreck havoc and bring peace all in one night. I remember clearly switching off the television set and made a bee line for the open, now unlocked liquor cabinets- I grabbed a bottle of 200 year old scotch, popped the top off, and began drinking right from the bottle like a piggish sailor. Without much intention, I walked into both living rooms and began to destroy everything in sight. The white furniture, the crystal knick knacks, hell- I even ripped the wallpaper from the walls like a mad man. Next the pictures on the walls went; I tossed, broke, ripped them apart with my bare hands like it was the most natural thing in the world. "He doesn't love you." I reminded myself, taking another long drink from the glass bottle as I climbed the stairs. Although clad in my tall, silver Dior heels I paced back and forth in our room for a good thirty minutes considering my next move. Without any further contemplation, I snatched the bottle and made my way into his old closet.

After ripping every piece of clothing off their hangers and kicking open every box of shoes, I found the desirable poison I had been looking for. I snatched the leather case from it's wooden container before gracefully strolling to my still intact vanity. There I sat primly as I smothered the fabric of my covered thighs, I shrugging off the button-up top with ease. I was left in a crème colored sleeveless shirt, still tucked into my high waist skirt. No one could possibly have noticed I was going mentally ill from my outward appearance- my spiral curls were still pinned in place and flowing over my shoulders in two practiced channels and save for a few streaks of mascara on the corners of my eyes, the makeup stayed on well throughout the night. But as I looked before me, where my fingers spread out the special delight in such a precise manner, I realized how much I was going to change things. Some called it white dragon, special sugar, powder paradise… and others called it cocaine.

In the container, I found a stiffly rolled hundred dollar bill and took it in my hands before another thought could infiltrate my mind. I saw Edward sniff this stuff once, he did like it was the easiest thing in the world. All of the other times I found traces of it on his clothes, his money, his nostrils… but I shut my mouth, pretended he wasn't betraying me by occasionally turning to a drug for a release I couldn't give him. Alice was told me that everyone did it, it wasn't so uncommon in their lifestyle. I knew where he kept it, though he assumed he was "hiding" the poison away from me so I wouldn't be attracted to the dangerous allure of it. A few times, I considered flushing it down the toilette just to get a rise out of him. It was a big supply, and I definitely knew it cost over a thousand dollars- Edward used to joke that it was a rich man's drug, but poor men killed to have just a taste on their tongues. I never laughed, even if he used that statement like a punch line when he had too much to drink.

_What's your name?_

_Who's your daddy?_

_Is he rich- is he rich like me?_

_Has he taken the time,_

_To show you what it is to live?_

I drew it in a straight line and held the rolled bill in one hand, glaring down at the empty ring finger before me. _Edward would kill you if he saw you now, _a soft voice screamed inwardly. "He moved on. He left you." I said aloud, staring down at the coke like it was the most disgustingly beautiful gift in the world. "He doesn't care about you. You need to start living." My teeth were grit together so hard that I was surprised words could even come out in the first place. "Stop being his stupid, naïve bitch. He loves her, not you. Let go. "

That was all it took for me to release every inhibition I held onto- I bent down and closed one nostril as I dipped my head to snort in as much of the fine Peruvian I possibly could. Nothing could prepare me for the sensation- not when I sniffed a pinch of salt on a dare as a kid, not when I was punched in the nose by my older cousin, not even the ball of pain in my chest when I first heard that Edward decided he wanted to marry another woman. I fell back against the chair in a roughish manner, causing it to topple to the side and take me with it. The sting started at the septum of my nostrils and moved down my throat until it made its way to my upper chest; I was on my hands and knees, trying to claw at my shirt to make the feeling go away. It was like my skin was turning inside out, a completely surreal sensation if I ever felt one. Like an out of body experience, with no control at all.

I pulled at my hair like a maniac, trying to stop the swirling voices in my head from dripping right out of my ears. The voices were soft and angry, telling me horrible things that stemmed from childhood all the way unto this situation at hand. Then the room started to slowly spin as if I were on a child's merry-go-round, and I felt like I was sitting on the ceiling and all of the furniture was hanging upside down. The shirt I wore was too constricting, so I ripped it off with formerly unknown strength. My heels started to feel like moon boots dragging my feet along, causing me to kick them off and crawl towards my vanity once more. Was my face on right? Did I still have hair? Was I really hanging from the ceiling? I stared at the mirror, but it wasn't my reflection I saw. It was my mother instead.

"Look at you." Rene sneered down at me. I titled my head to get a better look at her. Was this real? Was I just imagining all of this? It felt so real. "Look at you, you pathetic little bitch." She spat the horrible word at me like venom. "You've resorted to drugs. God is watching, he is judging you. You will go to hell, young stupid slut." I started crying at her evil words, at her realizing every single fault of mine. "This is why Edward left you. You are crazy, insane, not all there- your parents left you and so did he. You have no one, you're alone in this world and left to rot in the fiery pits of hell for all eternity-"

"No!" I screamed in horror. My fist connected with the mirror and it shattered into a million little shards around me. I didn't feel the blow, and nor did I feel the blood dip from my cracked skin at all; it was like I was invincible, nothing could hurt me. The thought brought a brightness to my life that I hadn't seen before- I stood up and walked around the room, surveying my lame existence for what it was. A pair of scissors laid silently on the beside, where I used them last night to cut out my favorite characters from Vogue. I snatched them up and gripped a few locks of my precious brown hair before snipping away like a careless child would. I went around my head, doing the same to random sections until I felt it was the right style- with no mirror or professional shears, I was sure I probably ruined the hair my mother worked so hard to groom for me. _I don't care_, I suddenly thought. _I don't care about anything._

I tossed the pictures and lamps from the bedside against the walls, then went inside my closet. _"He gave you everything… all of your jewelry and furs."_ Alice's words revisited my as I looked around- none of this belonged to me, it was all Edward's. One by one, I yanked the fancy fabrics and silky nightgowns from their hangers and ripped them by hand. "Fuck you, Edward." I breathed out, but it suddenly felt like no more breath could leave or enter my lungs. I dropped the Russian hat I was currently working at and clutched my bare throat- I was hyperventilating, and it was quickly getting out of hand. I ran back to the main bedroom and searched for anything that could help me- water, oxygen, an asthma pump… but there was nothing.

Thinking quickly, I scampered into the hallway and reached for the landline. I dialed a set of practiced numbers and loosely held the receiver to my face, not quite remembering which end I was supposed to speak into and which one I could hear through- but it didn't matter, the jumble of noises I let out wouldn't be considered speaking anyway. It was beyond me how to put a sentence together- did the "h" come before the "e" in "help"? Why was I so panicked in the first place? A voice called out to me from the telephone, but my mind was spinning so fast I was getting dizzy just keeping my eyes open.

So I closed them.

And I never felt so free as I did in that moment.

**A/N: Who did she call? Is Alice telling her the truth? Where does it go from here? Read on to see. **

**Yes, Bella just did coke. Yes, its wrong and I don't condone the use of drugs in any way, shape, or form. This was obviously VERY stupid of her. **


	24. Back By Popular Demand

There are moments in a girl's life where difficulty can be found- as I learned every Wednesday night and Sunday morning from a stingy, old pastor, God was supposedly the one that sent us these problems. He was rumored to have only sent the most impossible obstacles to his greatest children. And so there I was, lying cold and blind on the bedroom floor, silently reflecting on both my past and the horrifically exciting events that led me to my cliff. This was the edge of my life, the battle of my existence and I knew this. I brought myself here, no matter the messengers and prophets I met along the way; I was in my current predicament because of my own selfish decisions.

Alcohol, premarital sex, filthy lies, disgusting truths, thievery, trickery, murder, cocaine… if I still knew how to shut my eyes, I would do so against the onslaught of pain and humiliation. I had become the fastest harlot in the Chicago area within months- I drove cars, talked loudly, strutted in revealing clothes, and lived as fast as I possibly could on Edward's arm. We were only together for a little over nine months, engaged for three quarters, and knew one another even less; why did I ever talk myself into taking his offer? Sure, I could conjure up a million excuses and offer anyone who cared to hear them on a silver platter, but I had to face the truth. I _wanted_ him. I _wanted_ the glamorized version of this lifestyle. I _wanted_ to dance all night, drink the devil's water with zero girth, and share inhibited fornication with the man I loved… but as I rubbed open my weary eyes for the first time in what felt like days, I looked around and saw the plain truth. This wasn't glamorous, this wasn't even nice. I was riding on some fairytale that my fiancé allowed me to believe in, just as long as it made me quiet and content. Of course, it wasn't his fault a church-fearing, naive eighteen year old fell into his lap and couldn't help but drool every time he pulled out something shiny- but he could have warned me, perhaps even better prepared me for what was to come?

I sat up very slowly with sore arms, careful to not stir the extra sensitive nausea my stomach was currently encountering. The place was trashed- all the mirrors were broken, furniture was thrown wayside, my clothes lay in torn heaps around the room. I slapped a hand to my forehead and took a few calming breaths before I stood up on my own two feet. I could vividly remember doing all of this damage, but I couldn't explain why. Why did I let myself go absolutely insane over Edward like that? It was as if I worshipped him, as if I depended on his guidance to take my next breath! Frustrated with myself already, I ran both hands through my long, knotted locks only to find that my fingers stopped short just past my chin. My heart pitter-pattered in my chest, and all I could think was that this was some morbid, extravagant trick someone was playing on me. Surely, my hair… my long, luxurious, attention-grabbing hair… where was it? My nimble digits reached around my neck in search for a bun or a pony tail or a French plait, but alas there was nothing.

I crawled to a brown mess beside my cedar wood vanity and gasped at what I saw- was that what I thought it was? Trying to search for some explanation, I carefully got to my feet and looked around for an unharmed mirror. The ones in the bedroom and restrooms were completely destroyed, leading me to a luckily unharmed guestroom a few doors down. But I wasn't emotionally nor mentally prepared for the sight before me- this girl with skinny arms, a sunken face full of shadows and marks, disgusting pale complexion, and dried blood around her nose and cheek stood right in front of me. It wasn't until my eyes got over the shock of my reflection that I noticed where the crown of my beauty used to be.

I screamed.

And just when I thought I was done screaming, a let out a little more; my hands frantically pulled at the remnants of my locks, a few strands still long enough to reach past my ears and even fewer went past my shoulder. I felt disgusting, even more so than that very first moment I woke up- my mother taught me as a child that long, luxurious hair was what men wanted from their wives. She bathed it in jasmine oil for years and years, smiling happily each and every time, as though I had accomplished a great feat at such a tender age. She loved me solely because of my glorious brunette trait, a gene from my father's side of the family as she once told me. And now it was gone. The only part of me that my mother was ever truly proud of, hacked away in a gruesome massacre of madness and solitaire.

I held onto the sink for support in fear that I'd be sucked away from this nightmarish dreamland in any moment; a series of footfalls sounded on the steps- were those clacks from women's or men's dress shoes? I braced myself with a newfound reserve because no mater what face would soon appear beside me, I would not break. Was this the one I dialed on the phone? Had someone thought to check up on me, or was this a nosy stranger from a few kilometers away? Perhaps it was an intruder that I had no defense against? The footfalls grew closer and my resolve began to crumble into tiny little pieces. I was absolutely defenseless against the many harsh realities of life recently released into the wild, and nothing more. Something short and bittersweet for the road, not anyone worth giving that second glance. When I heard the guest bedroom door's opening squeal, I shut my eyes tight and clutched onto the porcelain sink even tighter. "Gonna keep your eyes closed the entire time?"

That voice made every weak bone in my rigid body flame up in pure, unadultered anger. My eyes flew open without a second thought as I studied the seemingly waveringly form in the reflection beside me. "What in God's name are you doing here?" I tried my best to maintain the Lady Isabella façade with this insufferable creature. "Why are you looking at me like that?" I demanded angrily. But there was no self-righteous or narcissism dripped in sarcasm as I had grown accustomed to with this woman.

"Because I pity you, Isabella." Her lightly freckled arms were crossed over a simple tunic and worn-looking flats. Pity? She pitied me? I didn't want nor deserve anyone's pity, lest hers! "Truly." Victoria Kane added in a short manner, almost as though she was trying to be a human being to me.

"Thank you for your regards," I breathed out slowly, "but they are sorely misplaced." Was it so wrong of me to want her out of my house, as quickly as humanly possible? "_Truly_." I added with grit. Victoria was nothing but trouble with evil intentions.

As I came to find in our many later encounters, Victoria Kane was an enigma in herself. Never could anyone say that she was predictable or able to be contained in one certain category- just when you assumed you knew was the real moment you were blinded by it all. I was hoping for an adverse reaction, perhaps even a rude remark with a sneer attached, but there was none. Just pity, all over her sharp features. "I overdosed on Morphine when I was fifteen years of age." Refusing to even slightly connect with her on an emotional level, I felt my walls rise in an instant. She was only pretending to connect with me, why would she ever feel the need to be a true friend to me?

"I did _not_ overdose." I spat out.

Victoria Kane didn't skip a beat. "My parents knew not what to do with me, so they took me to the community hospital and never returned for me. It almost saddens me to think that two people could be so careless, lest so evil as to abandon their only daughter." Rage mixed with a tiny speck of disappointment flashed in her emerald eyes, but it was gone in an instant as she straightened up. "After a week the hospital sent me to an outpatient home for troubled girls like myself- it's funny, the way our country's system lets bitter little things like me slip right through the cracks." I swallowed nervously, starting to feel something akin to sympathy for her. Her parents truly left her to fend for herself in a strange, new place with no help at all? "I shared a room half this size with nine other girls; only the four eldest were allotted pathetic excuses for beds while the rest of us slept on quilts on the stone floor beneath them. And like any other orphanage, the caretakers treated us like absolute filth."

My eyebrows drew together in splitting anguish- was her childhood that awful? Surely she turned out good (if not up to par with the excellent level I foolishly saw my life at) for her situation? Victoria was a nicely kept, clean woman in decent clothing. You would never be able to tell her back story by merely seeing the front cover. I learned that fact quite easily. "And your parents… they never thought to collect you?" My voice was meek and disturbed, but there was no other way to feel. Her experiences somehow humbled me in the midst of all of this- she made me feel humanized once more, as if this somehow explained all of the wrong I had faced.

Victoria shook her head slowly, lips pressed together in a tight line as she moved away from the place her reflection showed her to be. I followed in trivial pursuit; in some sick way, I wanted to know more. I suddenly wanted to understand the type of person she was, the kind of life she had seen, the experiences she had witnessed. "I know lots of things about you, Isabella, one thing being that we share a very similar life if not the very same one. Our parents were diplomatic assholes that never deserved to be called our guardians; we were left for dead in front of carnivorous, hungry wolves, yet we bellied up." She sent me a small smile, the first of our very rocky companionship. "We shed our yellow skin formed in childhood and ventured to make a name or even a life for ourselves. Even in failure, we persevered." Her eyes were the deepest green I had ever seen as she spoke down to me, our shoulders almost touching as we peered out of the bay window. Now that I thought about it, even my precious gardens looked wilt and pathetic. Hadn't I promised myself to keep the greenery alive as long as I lived under that roof? It would seem all of my promises, made to myself and to others, were so great that they were impossible to keep. Especially during the beginning days of winter. "Even though you wear pretty dresses and style your hair according to the height of the fashion world, you are my mirror image." She gestured to what was left of my once very expensive Guarani skirt suit and then to her generic figureless outfit. "Say, would you like to know the true reason behind my presence in your life?"

I nodded so erratically that she had to sit me down when the wave of nausea rolled over me- what was the truth now? Could I actually discern what had validity and what didn't stick, considering the state of mind I was in? "I want to know many things, and I prefer the entire honesty whether or not it is popular." I stated clearly, hoping that these precious moments of civility would lead her to be fully cooperative with the truth. She nodded and gestured with her hand, as if to open some sort of gate between us wherein the truth was kept hidden. Was I supposed to ask questions, or would she come out with it? I waited a few beats before blabbering out the first few things that popped into my head. "Is that your real name? Why are you here today? Are you alone? Did I call you? Why did you show up at Frederick Dougherty's funeral? How do you know me so keenly? Does this have anything to do with my ex-fiancé?"

She took a deep breath and rolled her head in a few different directions, finally catching my direct eye contact with a tiny huff. "Well, you really go for the cake, don't you?" Victoria added with a small chuckle. "Well, you can call me Vicky but yes it is my real name. And no, I'm not alone- thought I am not with the companion you saw me with the last time we met." She picked at a loose thread on her lap before looking back at me. "I am here because Rosalie Hale, your dear cousin, called me. I received no telephone ring from you, though I am not exactly sure how you were capable of phoning anyone in the state you were in."

"Rosa?" I cried out softly. Of all people, I had called Rosa? Sure, I loved her as anyone loved their first cousin, but she was not exactly the best person to be around in stressful situations. With her here, I was looking to get the tongue lashing of a lifetime!

Vicky nodded solemnly. "Yes, she was very worried and near panic before I arrived. You were out cold, not dead but very comatose-like, and she had assumed you were drugged against your will. Almost called the authorities a few different times, she would have if I hadn't begged her not to."

My eyes bugged out of their sockets. "My cousin was going to call the police on me? Oh my god!" I stood frantically. Were they on their way, now that I was awake and functioning? Would I be arrested and sent to prison for my wrongdoing? I shut my eyes in a rash manner before stomping back to her. "Is that insufferable brat here?" Suddenly Rosa was on the top of my shortlist- never would I ever consider calling the authorities on her! We were blood; did that not mean _anything_ to her?

"You need to calm yourself, Isabella, she is your family and only meant well." Vicky held a hand up to me. "Once I explained that the police would never buy a story about mobsters and drug distribution, and absolutely assured her that your strong pulse meant waking up within a few hours, she digressed and listened to every single last one of my instructions. I knew for a fact that you did this yourself, but Rosalie never once believed it. We were busy cleaning the mess you made when I heard you moving about. So yes, she is downstairs as we speak." I nodded in slow motion, careful not to awake the stormy beast inside my stomach. "And you have much to explain."


End file.
